Belfast, Northern Ireland

Hello!!! I am in Belfast in the country of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland in the United Kingdom. (: I am learning so much about the troubles of Northern Ireland. It seems you can never be too careful about what you refer the people to that live here. Some prefer Northern Irish, some British, others Irish. I am definately on information overload. But I don't mean to complain at all. I am loving everything about my time here. I feel so blessed to have gotten to hear personal accounts from people from Northern Ireland everyday with my class. So far we have heard from a Catholic professor from St Marys in Belfast, Ken a Protestant man in charge of a reconciliation and community development program in a poor Catholic area, Susi Swan a former business ceo woman who now also works for reconciliation with newly released prisoners, a presbertyrian reverend at Queens college and many of the students from there, and last night Alistair who leds a conference center for reconcilliation near the coast. Phew. I think that last sentence was way too long... sorry.

Anyways, like I said I am learning a lot about the troubles of Northern Ireland. I had heard about it before but I had no idea what it meant for the people who lived through it. I had thought it was on a much larger scale than what it was but on the other hand since Northern Ireland has a much smaller population than the US practically everyone was affected by the violence by either a relative or a friend dying. I mean, most people have at least heard of 'Bloody Sunday' which was one of the largest massacres of innocent people (something like 30 casualties) but in reality more people have died in our 9-11, or even soldiers who had fought in Iraq. It also makes me so sad that there is such conflict between Protestants and Catholics here. When I asked around about it I found that the term Catholic or Protestant are more political groups than religious. But still, it is interesting to think about how religion can be so woven into ethnic identies because that is not how it is for me. Although I know that that is the case for many cultures. Anyways, being in Belfast has stirred up many questions in me but not many answers...

But I can say that I LOVE BELFAST! I like how it is smaller than Dublin and you can actually see the sky when you look up. In Dublin you would just see very tall buildings all squished together when you looked up. I can also see the rollinh hills from almost anywhere in the city. I found out that Belfast has only had a night life for a little over 10 years because before that no one was safe at night and would be arrested if they were out at night. Susi told our class how she was arrested after a wedding when she was just walking to her car late at night.

Yesterday was the best day ever. We went to Derry (or Londonderry) and went on a walking tour. The term 'walking tour' is so misleading. I've been on a few now and they are more lecturing than walking. We basically talk about history, then walk across the street and talk more about history and then its over. Haha. But whatever, its still good. After that we went to the Duluce (sp?) castle ruins. When I left there I thought to myself 'that was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen'- there was even a musical group dressed up lall medievil and played the bag pipe, and some other funky insturments. After that wer went to the Atrim Coast at the National Trust and after that I KNEW that that was the most beautiful place I had ever seen!!!! Ill post some pics but I want everyone to go there! It was amazing!!!! They had some of the most interesting natural rock formations there- some looked like a pipe organ, others looked like a million stairs, and there were these tall cliffs with all sorts of different colors in the layers of rock. After that we went to Corrymeela, a conference center type of place near the coast where reconciliation meetings and programs are held. The man who spoke to our group had amazing things to say about progress made there. They seemed to have the main purpose of bringing together these Protestant and Catholic groups and having them discuss their feelings and seeing how much they had both deeply hurt the other in a way to give a face to the perceived enemy and see that they were actually not that different from themselves.