The History of Northern Ireland and My Role In It

Ahhh!!! Lots to catch up on! Sorry it's been so long but sometimes internet isn't easy to come by and when I do have it I'm busy with emails and now facebook (mistake! but so many peple were asking about it I had to) So look me up on face book and you can see when I'm going for biscuits, when I'm doing wash and all the dull everyday stuff that I do. :)

Ok, let's start at the beginning. When I last blogged, I was just leaving Westpot on my way to Derry, Northern Ireland. Before I begin telling you that adventure, a quick history lesson (sorry if this isn't exactly correct, but I think I have it down pretty well). Warning: This is long. If history bores you (that's ok) skips the itallicised part and get to the good stuff in the normal font! :) I wouldn't have found this interesting before I got here, so all you must know is that Northern Ireland is a different country than Ireland but not everyone wants it that way. That's the oversimplification of Northern Ireland in a tinny tiny nutshell! For the rest of you, here goes:

So, present-day Ireland and Northern Ireland were once both part of England, English colonies (United Kingdom), actually, just like Canada, Australia, South Africa, India and the US. Most of those have become their own countries, but Canada and Australia still pledge allegiance to the queen, unlike the rebel US. Ireland has since broken off and become it's own country recently and Northern Ireland is part of the UK, just like Scotland and Wales. Way back when before all that, England "planted" Protestants in Northern Ireland and they began treated the "native" Irish Catholics very poorly. Eventually, Ireland split off to their own country and Northern Ireland was left to the British.

When they made the border, the followed the River Foyle for the most part, but since it runs through the city Derry, the British took all of Derry. This left the Irish Catholics as a minority still so the Protestants still had the upper hand and left the Irish poor and without a vote, essentially. The Irish Catholics had their part of town, on the "Bogside" of the Foyle River and the Protestants were on the "Waterside." People rarely passed from one side to the other and it was the same in Belfast. Recently, there has been much fighting here over whether to join the Republic of Ireland and make the island one country (which the Catholics want) or to stay as they are, part of Britain (what the Protestants want).

This is NOT a religious thing, it just happens to be Protestants who originally came from Britain and want to remain part of Britain and Catholics who have Irish heritage and want to become part of Ireland again.

The region of Northern Ireland is commonly called Ulster (from the traditional counties' name) and it's easier to find a Ireland flag sticker than a Northern Ireland sticker. When I was trying to find a Northern Ireland patch, the lady at the shop told me that for many people, there is peace at the surface level, but underneath people feel very strongly.

The Troubles, as the violent times are called, are long gone, and most of the violence you hear of today are kids who just want violence and don't truely understand what the fighting was about. I've meet several men and women who lived through those times and they are very sad they happened, but they are looking toward peace in the future and want their way, but not so much to push to violence. On a walking tour in Belfast I took, the guide casually said hi and chatted with a man then told us he used to be a leader of the IRA (the Catholic side army). The governer of Coleraine used to also be a leader of the IRA and order people to be killed and now he governs those people jointly with a Protestant leader. These are real people who are still living today! There is a lot of recent history here, but there are some people who weren't affected immediately by it. I met three ladies today at St. Columb's Cathedral who lived through it but didn't hear about some things until a friend from London called and asked if they were ok because some bomb went off or there was shootings somewhere.

The whole area was not a warzone, but it certainly was in some places. The images we see about The Troubles are not false, but they are not the entire country's state at that time either.

That is the condensed (but not short) history of Ireland and why it is so important to realise it is a different country than Ireland. Many tourists come here and think they are still in Ireland. The border is nothing and many roads can cross it several times in just a kilometer. All that switches to the tourists are euros to pounds, kilometers to miles and most things are cheaper here than in the Republic.

But there is so much more if you look at the past, even the recent past, talk to the people who lived through it and look at the murals painted across town, both on the Catholic and Protestant sides. It's really amazing how recent this was (and it's still going on) but how little people know about it. The people of Northern Ireland feel so much for people in Basque Country and Palestine and other places where the same thing is going on.

Ok, everyone awake still or just confused? Get a book and hopefully it can explain it better. It's really interesting once you get into it. But for me it's easier to understand and connect with if you are here.

Ok, so I left Westport, coatless as you may remember, with my thumb sticking out and getting into random cars. Yes, I hitchhiked from Westport 5 hours Northeast across the border to Derry, Northern Ireland. It was my first time hitching and I did very well. I only took a bit longer than the bus, I never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a lift and I had 8 people pick me up, I think, and one even had me over for tea before taking me to a good spot for hitching! Very nice people in Ireland, I must say. And a very successful first day of hitching.

I arrived in Derry and was dropped off right in front of the hostel and after checking in, treated myself to 4 GBP fish and chips at Wetherspoons, a cheap chain restaurant. Back at the hostel, I met my roommates, Jessica and Shawn, and talked my way into going with them in their car around the countryside the next day. After a restless night for all three of us (who puts normal matresses on kidsize bunks????) we took off to explore stone circles in the countryside. It was very cool, (free) and besides the rain, wind and lack of coat, it was great.

When we returned, we were all exhausted and Urko, a Couchsurfing host, had me over for dinner. He is Basque and made me Mussel Paella. Yum. It was delicious. He also introduced me to Kalimotxo, which is a fifty/fifty coke and red wine (sorry Mom, I sinned... mixing wine and coke) and it was quite good. A nice way to fix cheap red wine. :) Well, Urko couldn't host me that night because he was going to leave the next day to a long weekend away, and I returned back to my hostel to brag about my dinner. :)

Sunday, I bummed another ride with Jessica and Shawn to Doe Castle, which is a cool castle in the process of being restored. It's in County Donegal, in Rep. of Ireland, and was great fun for taking photos and exploring.

Monday, Jessica and Shawn went on the Giant's Causeway for two nights, but since I hadn't seen the murals in Derry yet, I stayed behind, plus I had plans to stay at Urkos Monday night and didn't want to cancel on him last minute. I explored the murals, both on the Protestant and Catholic sides of the River Foyle. I was glad to meet up with two other North Americans so we went together, which was good because I don't think as a single female I would have felt comfortable there alone. It began to rain and they had left me to return to the hostel, so I ducked into a mural museum or sorts and began talking with a man there who told me many stories and showed me "just down this street and to the right there was regular fighting" or "just here at this street corner, the Catholics would throw stones at the Protestant soldiers, pausing only for women with their shopping bags returning from the market and for tea time, except this one guy...." It was very interesting.

Coming back to the hostel, I just wanted to decompress, so I watched a movie with Don, from the hostel and went to Urkos for dinner and bed. We had to finish the mussels since they were going to go off that day so he cooked them with a buttery (he never uses butter! just a huge vat of olive oil and a teeny partial stick of butter that expired months ago!) wine sauce and garlic. It was very good. And, again, of course, Kalimotxo. :)

Tuesday I went to Giants Causeway on my first train of the trip! I went with Don, from the hostel and met up with Jessica and Shawn at the train station. We took our bags to the most fabulous hostel ever, Downhill Hostel, and I didn't want to leave! It was like an old country home on the ocean with amazing views and it was also a pottery studio, so it had a great homey feel with their pottery used at mugs and plates, etc.

We left heaven and drove to Giant's Causeway, the four of us, and paid an outrageous 8 euro to park! The causeway was amazing, though. It was an old volcanic field that, over time, reshaped itself into thousands of hexagonal pillars, acting like steps in places and making amazing natural geometric patterns everywhere! After a few hours of wandering, we returned famished to make dinner, only to find out the gas wasn't working. The hostellier's wife was from Seattle and was entertaining guests from Bellingham (wow!) and cooked our pasta and meat for us in her kitchen. Her guests cooked their own food. Everyone was really good humoured about it and we combined our meals to make it less work for her. and we got to eat together. I was still sick, so the hostelier gave me Irish medicine of honey, whiskey and water to help me sleep. It was great.

Wednesday, Jessica, Shawn and I drove to Belfast along the Antrim Coast. It was pretty, but most of the time I was admiring the inside of my eyelids. When we got to Belfast, I was overwhelmed with how large it was but we ended up finding another surfer of my host and he walked me to our host's house. After a few moments of relaxation, we went for coffee and pastry and wandered town. We went to Tesco and got ingredients for dinner. He made us chicken, cous cous and roasted veg and I put together Greek youghurt, honey and blackberries for dessert. With hot toddies, of course (whiskey, hot water and honey. Be careful, though, to not boil the whiskey otherwise you will burn off the alcohol and it's not worth it!)

Thursday was another relax day. I used the internet, started to get over my cold, went to the mall, Starbucks, journaled, then watched the final episode of ER with my host who insisted on silence. :)

Friday I went with another surfer to St. George's Market and shared an Ulster Fry, like an Irish breakfast, black pudding (sausage from you-don't-want-to-know-what-from), white pudding (ditto), egg, bacon, toast, beans (in a sauce like baked beans) and some other greasy thing I've forgotten about... a symptom of not blogging in two weeks... sorry. We then explored the Botanic Gardens and returned to the flat to watch some much needed movies, Friends and West Wing. After dinner, we went to Duke of York to meet up with some CouchSurfers but since we didn't know them, we didn't find them. We did, however meet some very nice and sociable locals who danced the night away with us (not very soberly).

Saturday the other surfer and I went on a walking tour of Belfast, the murals, the IRA headquarters and the Catholic and Protestant cemetaries (and everything in between). It was really amazing to hear what he had to say, since he lived through it and is helping create peace and rebuild Belfast and Northern Ireland. If you go to Belfast, I strongly recommend Coiste Political Tours. I learned so much I can't even tell you it all, especially since most of it is just more detalied version of the history lesson I gave earlier. :) After, I went to H&M to get some green stylish leggings and journal on the City Hall lawn with all the teenage punk and goths. After dinner, I met other CouchSurfers (and actually found them this time- mobile phone numbers are so much help!) for drinks and hanging out. There was live music and the drummer's girlfriend was in the CouchSurfing group, so it was really fun.

Sunday I met up with my new host, Tobias, and he took me to see street theatre which, this week, was a youth circus group and then a tightrope walker. After, we went with Tobias' friend in her to on an impromtu trip to the beach. Yes, a beach in Northern Ireland on the Irish Sea. It was actually pretty nice, but the water was cold. There were a lot of people out and it was quite full of smoke, kids and sunburnt people. We came back after a few hours and went to another host's house for a BBQ where he bought every meat possible. Beef, chicken, lamb, pork and probably some rat thrown in there that we didn't know about. It was an amazing BBQ. We just hung out and chatted for hours and when we left, there were still 4-5 people there and it was nearing 11:30p I think.

Monday, I wandered Belfast with Lia, a German girl who was also staying with Tobias. We found a lot of the murals and then wandered around the pedestrian shopping district. I found sunglasses at T.K. Maxx (just like our T.J. Maxx), bought a new phone for 10 pounds and we shared a Dark Mocha Berry Frappuccino, which, when we discovered whole ice in the bottom, true to Starbucks standard they remade it for us fresh. There were still ice chunks but we had already had twice what we both though we wanted and didn't want any more sweetness. That evening, I took the train/bus/train combo back to Derry and on the last leg, from Coleraine (Giant's Causeway) to Derry I had a beautiful view of the sunset and when one of the train workers started talking to me, I joked that if he could ask the conductor to slow down, I would be grateful. He laughed and several minutes later, came back to me on his cell phone, talking to the conductor but smiling and shaking his head no to me. I laughed and made sure he knew I was kidding and he just teased me more. I did get some good shots, though, just through a dirty train window with trees flashing by.

I suppose I should let you know that I was coming back to Derry on Monday to catch a flight somewhere mysterious that was cheap (I'm going to make people guess) but since I didn't have internet at Tobias', I hadn't bought the ticket and by the time I got to Derry, it wasn't cheap anymore so I bought one for Saturday instead. So I got to hang out in Derry for several days. As if I don't have enough relax time already. But it was still nice to get caught up on blogs, emails, couchsurfing and making the mistake of creating a Facebook account.

I also watched Angels & Deamons in my free days here and it was very good. I'm not spoiling it for those of you who haven't seen it, but once of the charecters (Ewan McGregor's) is from Ulster (Northern Ireland) and talks breifly about The Troubles. It's interesting watching that movie here, in Northern Ireland where many people can connect to parts of his charecter. Oh, and if that wasn't fun enough, in Northern Ireland, they offer the choice of salty or sweet popcorn at the theater! We had salty, but tried the sweet. It's like Caramel Corn, but not as sugary. It was good, just not what we were expecting.

This morning, I went to morning Litany at St. Columb's Cathedral. I was one of three people there and it was nice and intimate. After, we had tea and sweets and just chatted. They told me about The Troubles and their experiences, or lack of experiences. They told me often, something wouldn't happen but they wouldn't know about it until a friend of London or somewhere called them and asked if they were ok because there had been a bomb or a shooting or something. Coming back, I went back on the hunt for a Northern Ireland patch and finally settled on a patch with the four counties on it, including Ulster. The lady at the shop told me it isn't common because most tourists think Northern Ireland is just part of Ireland, so they want Ireland patches. It's also tough because many people on the Catholic side (where I'm staying) want to be part of Ireland, so they consider themselves Irish, not British. It's an interesting conflict that is, as she said, not apparent on the surface, but deep inside people have strong feelings one way or the other.

Well, tomorrow I fly to a mysterious location and will post a photo here and on my Facebook page and maybe by email, too. So standby and guess where I am. Hint (but not much of a hint): I have to fly there. But I'd have to fly anywhere from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Ok- that should be all! Hopefully I'll be less than two weeks next time in my blogging! Keep in touch!