{"id":5198,"date":"2013-03-07T09:18:19","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T17:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldblogs.ups.edu\/studyingabroad\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2013-03-07T09:18:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T17:18:19","slug":"belfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/2013\/03\/07\/belfast\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t know a lot about modern Irish history when I came over here. \u00a0I taught myself about the Easter Rising because I loved Yeats and I knew he loved a woman who was involved in it, but it was so much bigger than I could have understood on my own. \u00a0I’ve been learning about it for seven weeks now and it’s terrifying. \u00a0I had to write my first midterm paper on my perspective on the Northern Irish Troubles. \u00a0After visiting Belfast over midterm break, I have images that convey something of what has gone on in that city. \u00a0I’m in no way an expert, but I don’t think a lot of people know about the conflict in Ireland that’s still going on. \u00a0Here’s a quick history lesson, taken almost verbatim from the paper I turned in yesterday. \u00a0Yes, there’s a bibliography at the end of this for anyone who’s curious. \u00a0You can also Wiki any of these events. \u00a0Or you can skip this history lesson and ignore Irish troubles. \u00a0A lot of America does.<\/p>\n

The animosity the exists between Catholics and Protestants can be traced back to the plantations of Ulster which began to appear in 1609.\u00a0 Protestant farmers took Catholic land in an attempt to introduce \u2018civilized\u2019 British living to the \u2018wilds\u2019 of Ireland.\u00a0 This led to the Catholic slaughter of Protestants in 1641; Cromwell\u2019s suppression of Catholics in 1652; and, eventually, the Williamite-Jacobite War that took place between 1698 and 1691. \u00a0The partitioning of Ireland supported Protestant control, as Unionists insisted that Northern Ireland should only consist of the six most Protestant counties of the nine counties of Ulster, ensuring that Protestants would hold the majority in elections.\u00a0 This strategy succeeded; throughout the political history of Northern Ireland, Unionist members of Parliament consistently outnumbered Republicans until Britain disbanded the Northern Irish Parliament of Stormont in 1972 after Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n

A student currently living in Northern Ireland spoke of the fear of Catholic violence which is still promoted and impressed upon Protestant children today. \u00a0Catholics still feel like they’re oppressed. <\/span>Since the formation of the Northern Irish state in 1921, Catholic citizens suffered under Protestant Unionist social reforms such as the Special Powers Act.\u00a0 These reforms resulted in severe oppression, including Catholic unemployment rates that, in the 1970s and 80s, were three times higher than Protestant unemployment rates.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Catholics borrowed tactics from the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and began peaceful protests for their own civil rights.\u00a0 When the protests were ignored by politicians or attacked by Unionist-affiliated policemen and civilians, this led to violent outbursts such as the Battle of the Bogside and the creation of Free Derry.\u00a0 While Catholics previously sought change by working within the political system, when Bogside homes were threatened by police forces, the Catholics went for weapons rather than political reforms.\u00a0 This created a self-sustaining loop, for Protestant fears of Catholic rebellion were realized when Catholic Republicans rose up against them; Protestant Unionists still refused to yield to Republican demands for civil rights, and thus Catholics fought back all the harder.<\/p>\n

Britain itself had little interest in Northern Irish affairs and is still seeking to find a way for Northern Ireland to govern itself with little to no British involvement.\u00a0 This would only be possible, however, through a collaboration among Catholics and Protestants.\u00a0 Both Unionists and Republicans must be invested in the state\u2019s well-being before Northern Ireland can be politically stable without British intervention. \u00a0With Protestants still seeking to control Northern Irish politics, though, and with the rise of Catholic political parties who work within the parliamentary system to bring it down, it is unlikely that such a collaboration will take place soon. \u00a0At least, that’s what I think after two months of learning about this. \u00a0I could be wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, this is what I knew going into our Northern Ireland trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we arrived in Belfast after a three hour train ride, we had to pay with British sterling instead of euros. \u00a0The signs were only in English, no Irish to be seen anywhere. \u00a0They call their Bulmers cider Magners even though it’s the same label, same taste. \u00a0It was very…strange.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, Belfast is a very new city. \u00a0It’s been bombed and rebuilt so many times, I don’t think there were buildings over fifty years old there.<\/span><\/p>\n

We went to see the Belfast murals. \u00a0The first ones we saw were in Shankill, a Protestant neighborhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This one says “Nothing about us without us is for us.” \u00a0The government has been trying to get rid of the Belfast murals for quite a while now but the people who live in the neighborhoods with this art are resisting. \u00a0The mural is made up of pictures of people who live in this neighborhood. <\/span><\/p>\n

The reason the government dislikes the murals is most likely because some of them<\/span><\/p>\n

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are pretty terrifying. \u00a0This one’s showing how scary the IRA is. \u00a0The IRA is the Irish Republican Army over here. \u00a0They plant bombs. \u00a0Two were defused while we were in Belfast, we learned later.<\/p>\n

Some murals have a history lesson behind them.<\/p>\n

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This is the Red Hand of Ulster. \u00a0Two\u00a0chieftains\u00a0were bookin it towards land because who ever touched the land first would own it. \u00a0The losing\u00a0chieftain\u00a0cut off his own hand and threw it so it landed first and thus he won Ulster. \u00a0Hooray! \u00a0Never surrender! \u00a0Northern Ireland is made up of six of the nine counties of Ulster, so they use this symbol on their flags.<\/p>\n

Then we went out of Shankill…<\/p>\n

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This is the checkpoint people pass through to get from Protestant Shankill to the Catholic Falls area of Belfast. \u00a0It’s open until around 6 at night. \u00a0It closes completely on weekends. \u00a0It’s a part of one of the longest Peace Walls that runs through Belfast.<\/p>\n

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This peace wall runs all the way up onto that hill you can see in the distance. \u00a0It’s seriously huge. \u00a0Belfast asked graffiti artists from around the world to come and make it prettier (as pretty as a 60-foot-high wall made of concrete,\u00a0corrugated\u00a0metal, and chain link fencing can be). \u00a0Even cooler is the fact that the men who drive the Black Cabs in the Black Cab Tours dole out pens and crayons so visitors can add their own marks to the wall.<\/p>\n

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There were a lot of messages promoting reconciliation, understanding, and compromise. \u00a0There were messages of solidarity, love, and tolerance. \u00a0There was a surprisingly small amount of filthy graffiti up there. \u00a0I’m kind of proud of people.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we made it into the Falls.<\/p>\n

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They had a whole row of murals that commemorated their own struggles, but also expressed their solidarity with other causes. \u00a0There was a copy of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica<\/em> and a couple other political uprisings that the Catholics apparently condone.<\/p>\n

This was also the only place I saw Gaelic in Belfast!<\/p>\n

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By the way, I really doubt that this was a Gaetacht. \u00a0They totes spoke English more than they spoke Irish. \u00a0That’s fine, though, at least they learned Irish at all. \u00a0Irish makes me kind of happy, in case you can’t tell.<\/p>\n

So, these are some of the things I saw in Belfast. \u00a0I got some very interesting perspectives on the Troubles from the Black Cab drivers, saw some disturbing images, got hassled by twelve year olds, and saw no violence even though it turns out some almost happened while we were there. \u00a0A successful Belfast trip!<\/p>\n

(Here’s my bibliography for the interested:<\/p>\n

Dixon, Paul.\u00a0 Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace.<\/em> New York: Palgrave, 2001.<\/p>\n

Farrell, Michael.\u00a0 Northern Ireland: The Orange State<\/em>.\u00a0 London: Pluto, 1980.<\/p>\n

Feeney, Brian. Sinn F\u00e9in: A Hundred Turbulent Years<\/em>.\u00a0 Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 2003.<\/p>\n

Moloney, Ed.\u00a0 A Secret History of the IRA<\/em>.\u00a0 London: Penguin, 2003.)<\/p>\n


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I didn’t know a lot about modern Irish history when I came over here. \u00a0I taught myself about the Easter Rising because I loved Yeats and I knew he loved a woman who was involved in it, but it was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hannah-fattor-14-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}