Taxi tour in Belfast

I didn't have the chance to post this entry on the day I wrote it. I'm technically still en route to Athens so, by that standard, it counts towards this travel blog.

We took the Belfast taxi tour this morning. More on the conflict in Northern Ireland. Derry was an important city once the conflict began but Belfast is where it all started and remains one of the most visible spots of conflict. 

We had two Protestant and two Catholic drivers who showed us each side of a wall - Dave said Ireland's nickname for it is the Berlin wall of Ireland. This wall lines Bombay street and children on one side of the wall, to this day, will never get to play with children living just on the other side. It was so bad that their cemetery in Belfast was divided into a Catholic and Protestant side with a wall going twenty feet into the earth so that even in death they would still be divided. Dave said that the business with the cemetery showed people that the segregation was out of hand. 

We fit our whole group into about six taxis with five people per taxi. I stuck with Emily, Nerida and Michael who has glommed onto our small group in the last few days. He's Australian too.
We started on the Protestant side called Cupar Way to look at some more murals and then the above, a 30 ft-high wall that divides the Protestant shankhill and the Catholic falls.

After a brief look at some of the graffiti on the wall we were driven around the wall to Bombay street, which was burned by protestants in 1969 with the aim to "burn all the Catholics out of their homes." It is famous because it was the first street where conflict started.

This is "Clonard Martyrs Memorial Garden". The left side of plaque are IRA members (denoted volunteer). Our guide told us that many civilians died by acts of "collusion" throughout the entire conflict. 

But children got caught in the crossfire too. The numbers in parenthesis are ages.

In 1998 the official conflict stopped when the IRA put away their weapons but the two sides of the neighborhood extended the fence in 2005 because there were still outbreaks of violence at this time. This made all of us taking the black taxi tour realize just how recent this war is. The neighborhoods are just now starting to talk about taking the wall down, but the peace process is very fragile and taking the wall down is no small task. 

Last stop was the international wall. New murals are painted frequently to reflect current events. 

In particular, we talked about hunger strikes of 1981 mural. It was essentially the culmination of a lot of political tensions and Bobby Sands was a key figure in this strike. These prisoners were protesting the British government's withdrawal of Special Category Status for convicted prisoners who served in parliament. They were treated as criminals and made to endure terrible conditions in prison. There were blanket protests, where the prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms and the dirty protest where prisoners smeared excrement on the walls to emphasize how bad the conditions were. Sands died after 66 days of hunger strike and all the other men in the mural died similarly, before Margaret Thatcher would comply with their requests, called the Five Demands. These were:
1. the right not to wear a prison uniform
2. the right not to do prison work
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organize educational and recreational pursuits
4. the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest

My group of four then went to the Titanic museum. I didn't get a shot of the outside but it's made of metal and is supposed to look like an iceberg. I thought this to be in poor taste. Our taxi driver who dropped us off at the hostel afterward had the following opinion about the museum: "they spent millions of the taxpayers' dollars building a museum about a ship that sank." It felt more like an amusement park than a tour of a famous historical event. We went in little cars "through the shipyard" for instance. I did think that the video footage from the time (of the shipyard, the launch etc.) was neat though. We started at the top of the museum which told why Belfast was the perfect city in which to build the Titanic through the actual journey and the passengers, to the bottom level, where they took us through the discovery of the Titanic on the sea floor in the 1990s. As we were leaving they had a little overview of how well the movie compared with the history and I learned that there really was a Jack Dawson aboard, who was part of the third class (the filmmakers apparently learned this tidbit after making the movie.)

After that it was a 2 hour ride back to Dublin and then I checked into my hostel, which a lot of people from the tour are booked at as well. I met up with a group for sushi dinner and  then we went to a pub that our tour guide kindly recommended so that we could all have one last night hanging out with people we knew. Lots of dancing (a local applauded my efforts at Irish dancing, which made my night) but not as much drinking as the night before (I got home safely) - overall, a lot of fun. The first band that played was traditional Irish. They called themselves "the wild rovers". The second was a woman with a dynamic voice and a wicked guitar accompaniment who sang covers that everyone joined in on more or less on pitch. This is truly the mark of a good act - how much the audience joins in. 

Say no to drive-by tourism

Day 1 of my ending days in Dublin (written 9/30 because of spotty internet connection since 9/26).

Last night I considered going on a day trip to monastic ruins/the Wicklow mountains with a fellow hosteler I met from Idaho, but this morning I opted out. There's too much I want to do in Dublin.

Here's what I did do:

In my room I met two Spaniards (from Valencia and Basque country) who invited me to join them on their morning plans to visit St. Stephen's Green (a park) and Trinity College. 

Itsaso, 29, works as an au pair in Southern Ireland. She and Enrike (who took the photograph) have both moved to Ireland for work. 

Saw this awesome mural of Cuchulain along the way to Trinity College. Enrike (22) and I both wanted pictures of it. 

Also ran across a statue of Molly Mallone! I learned that she was a real person. Itsaso kept referring to the statue of the famous prostitute and i had no idea until we reached the statue that she was referring to the subject of the song "Cockles and Mussels" that I've sung about a thousand times.

The hostel breakfast was pretty scant (bread and orange juice) so we stopped in this cafe with pretty faux stained glass windows for a bite. 

After second bfast we went to Trinity college to see the Book of Kells exhibit. 

This trip has done more to pique my curiosity about certain things (including the troubles in the past century, the making and writing of the Book of Kells) than to really inform me about them. I feel I have a lot to research when I return home. I did not have enough time before my jail expedition to do justice to the Kells exhibit but what I did learn was that there were three "authors" of the Books of Kells, each with a different job. Author 1 was not artistic and just copied biblical passages in irish regular and mini script. The book dates back to 800 a.d. and was written in Latin. Author 2 went back and drew the illustrations, picking out certain words and letters to add detail to. They had a cool poster of the Book of Kells alphabet putting all of the illustrated letters on one page in alphabetical order. Author 3 went back and painted gold over some of the illustrations. I met a guy in the hostel who works at a renaissance fair in Austen and was proudly showing me his beautiful leather-bound journal. I told him later that the book of kells is like the ultimate journal. Of course, you couldn't take pictures of the book itself. Here are pictures of their incredibly gorgeous library called the long room.

Ireland's oldest harp, also known as Brian Boru's harp, dating from the 14th or 15th century. (This is important to them because the harp is Ireland's national symbol. I found out on our way back into Dublin from tour that this large white bridge at the far edge of town that has a lot of extra wires going up one side is supposed to be shaped like a harp. Go figure.) 

I fought my way outside, got a little turned around on the way back to the hostel and made it back to meet my friends who were embarking to Kilmainham Gaol only a few minutes late. One perk of getting lost was stumbling across this pub : )

Kilmainham Gaol is way the heck outside of the main city center. We left at 12:40 and arrived around 1:30. We found out later it would have been 5 minutes by bus but none of us were against walking. 

If finding our way to the jail was a little confusing, finding my way around the inside was completely baffling. I slipped away to the restroom right before the tour and walked around 3 floors before I found my way to my tour group. I think it's a European thing to spread things out and try to compensate with a lot of signs that then peter out halfway to your destination. Anyway, here are some pictures of the jail:

The cells themselves were really dark and depressing but this main area where the guards managed a surprisingly modern system of distributing food to prisoners has been the set of several films - can't remember their names.

Our Tour guide emphasized that all of the prisoners (mostly captured IRA members) were ordinary men, they were not trained military professionals. 

Visited the condemned man's cell where Robert Emmett was held. He was 25 when executed and educated at trinity college. He chose to represent himself  and, like his rebellion, failed, but the speech he gave has been quoted by many activists like mlk jr., gandhi and lincoln. His most quoted line from that speech is:

"When my country takes her place among the nations of the world, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written." 

He and James Connelly are two of the most famous prisoners who were executed at Kilmanhaim Gaol. They were both important leaders of the IRA who wrote passionately about the fight for Irish independence from British rule. 

When Connolly was captured he was wounded so badly he went to the hospital instead of jail. He was basically on his deathbed anyway but was such an important figure that the British wanted him to be executed at Kilmainham. So, British officers hauled him over there where 12 other members were to be executed. He couldn't walk to the other side of the courtyard so they put him against the wall at the side closest to the gate. He fell down though when they tried to stand him up and fell out of a chair when they sat him in a chair so they tied him to the chair then executed him. This was apparently the tipping point in public opinion and people were against capital punishment after hearing stories like these, so there were no more executions at Kil. gaol after this. Crazy Irish. 

The jail closed in the 20's then the restoration projects began in the 60's. This is some recent stuff. 

Got some much-needed down time in the afternoon then out with Nerida and Emily for dinner. They're crazy too.

Derry murals

We switched guides and buses today to accommodate the 30-odd people now travelling north. Our new guide's name is Dave. He's going on with us up north while Kim is returning with the five-dayers to Dublin. 

Dave began by telling us to not wear union jackets up north, that you will not be welcome and may be harassed. Then, on a lighter note, he told us the story of Grace O'Malley, an Irish pirate captain who inherited her father's fleet and went on to become one of the most famous women in Irish history. There was a famous meeting between Queen Elizabeth 1 and O'Malley in which both women were too proud to use translators to speak to each other and ended up speaking in Latin (meaning that she was well-educated in addition to being a badass sea captain). O'Malley's relationship with the Queen is historic - at one point the Queen prevented her from being executed, even though she had gained a lot of notoriety at that point and there was a very high price on her head.

She's one of the most famous women in Irish history and Hollywood recently wanted to cast Jessica Biel in her role when they caught on to the story. The Irish film industry sent a message saying that Ireland would boycott the film if they did this. Needless to say, they went with someone else.

The conversation turned to politics as we made our way north to Sligo, the birth and deathplace of my favorite poet W.B. Yeats.

Dave is very knowledgeable of the conflict of the past 30 years and spent the morning after our first rest-stop (at a pub next to Ireland's only fjord - my first pub outing during the day. I had bailey's hot chocolate. Delicious.) 

Dave spoke very passionately about the troubles that spawned the IRA and a slew of other incarnations of it that I haven't heard of. He told us he would gladly answer any questions while on the coach but that he'd ignore us if we asked him about it off the bus. Everyone wants peace and the bar staff will actually throw anyone who talks about the conflict out of the pub, because they don't want anyone's night to be ruined. His dad and grandfather both narrowly missed being victims of bombings and, while he is the first generation to live in peaceful times, he said it still doesn't feel like he will see real peace in his lifetime. 

Visited the grave of Yeats first, which was just outside of Sligo. It was by a small four-spired church where he served as rector and there was a view of the valley just beyond the trees. We visited at a very poetic time of year; felt the bite of autumn and walked through pools of dead brown leaves on the walkway.

The highlight of the day and possibly this whole trip so far (a grand statement considering we just visited the grave of Yeats) was our walking tour of Derry. I won't be able to get it all down so I'll have to supplement with a slideshow of sorts below. We walked along the city wall and then through the Bogside, which was the place where Bloody Sunday occurred and where the whole conflict started in 1969.

Annette is name of girl who was shot by sniper because they thought she was holding a gun. She was super young. Guide told us a man would sit across from her mural and speak to it every day for as long as she was a tour guide. He stopped in the last few years and she presumed that he died. She was recently informed that he was Annette's father.

Civil rights pic - Jackie Duddy (17) was the first to be shot on Bloody Sunday. 

Some mural pics like this one were taken from actual footage of that day, whereas most of the murals just depicted typical scenes in the Bogside.

Che cevara mural about his son. He came to Ireland several times.

Peace bridge built in 2010. Dalai lama walked over it, as did I after dinner.

 It felt really strange eating at this nice restaurant after taking the tour. It felt disengaged. Other events of the day included changing our money over to the pound sterling, which is a lot prettier than the euro in my opinion, if money were to be pretty. Also, we're sleeping two to a room tonight and my roommate is sick...I hope I don't catch whatever she has. On the bright side, she's from NZ and is at the end of an epic trip that took her along the trans-Siberian railroad to Mongolia and Russia. She also went to Italy, Greece, Croatia, Spain and is finishing up in London, where she's lived the past 2 years, after Ireland. My God. 

Bicycling inis mor

My second ferry ride was very different from my first in Doolin - the boat was huge, smooth-sailing and we sat indoors and listened to a pop radio station. Maybe this is the way hostels/tour groups make tourists more receptive to the traditional music; by playing terrible pop music so much that anything else is like a breath of fresh air. I think if I was listening to traditional irish jam session-type music all the time it would wear on me a bit, but so far I've found most of the street musicians - and especially the music in the pubs - to be really good so I don't feel like calibrating my standards is necessary. I'm glad I got the other, unpolished experience beforehand. 

Biked around with Nerida, Mark and Emily. They're pretty cool cats - all from Australia. We took the road along the coast to the prehistoric fort Dun Aengus (archaeologists have recently begun to think that the stone walls were first piled up around 1100 BCE).

  It was strategically placed on a hill at the coast so that Irish settlers could spot invaders coming from the sea. Some of the wall has since collapsed into the sea and now, once you pass through the four outer walls enclosing some 14 acres, you can walk right up to the cliff edge which is some 100 meters above the sea. Nerida would only army crawl up to the edge. 

We also saw some seals peaking their heads above the waves in what was marked as a seal colony an ate soup and bread at an insanely cute cottage/restaurant. 

The outside. So cozy. So inviting.

The inside. Wow. Fresh wild flower and candles everywhere. So homey. There was a sign over the serving counter that said, "when I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist." (Helder Comara) hmm.

Speaking of cool cats, I met so many friendly cats on the island. There was also a big fat white one named Odie, but I didn't get a picture of him. I was too blissed out by having a cat sit on my lap for a whole half hour.

Evening was free so I went out to the grocery store and cooked a meal for the first time in over two weeks. This hostel is very accommodating for people who want to cool their own meals. Unlike the others we've been at, a lot of people stay in and cook. Everyone sort of waited their turn for the kitchen and it worked out really well. 

On tour

I didn't blog yesterday because Eden and I were on a bus from 8:40 am to 5 pm and after that we just  bought a few provisions for the rest of my trip and souvenirs for Eden's demanding boyfriend : ) (although it's nice to know what someone wants). High points were meeting Sandy, a musician who paid for her room and board at Isaac's hostel by playing for an hour in the hostel lobby. I sang two folk songs with her towards the end of her set but did not press for a discount : ) She is spending just a few days in Ireland then heading over to Wales to visit her elderly friend.

Isaac's is a 200 year old converted wine cellar. It's nice and overrun with young tourists.

This morning I had cornflakes then walked over to my tour office and climbed aboard Shamrock Adventure Tour's very cozy bus (especially for our legs). Kim, our guide, has a heavy Irish accent, is 21 and very passionate about Vikings and Irish history. It seems like hers would be a cool job.

A fact I learned today that Eden would appreciate: since cows, historically and presently, have been an integral part of Ireland's livelihood, the Vikings valued one long sword at 14 cows.

Kim alternated between telling us the history of Ireland from the time of the Vikings to mostly present and playing some of her favorite Irish music for us. 

She recommended David Attenborough's documentary, "the amber time machine" while telling us about the Vikings' belief that amber had magical properties. 

At one point we went around and told embarrassing stories about ourselves by way of introduction and the best by far was one Kim had about a "friend of a friend" involving a hookup at a bar, a dysfunctional toilet and the woman accidentally leaving a bag of poop on the guy's bed the next morning because she couldn't flush the toilet and didn't want to leave it there but then accidentally  locked herself out before she could retrieve it. Don't know how exactly you forget about something like that but it was an interesting way to start the tour nonetheless. 

Listened to dirty old town on the way to Galway and, after our first stop at a service station, she introduced us to a "trad" (traditional) band that she actually likes called Socks in the Frying Pan.

She had lots of myths and legends up her sleeve - my fav being about Cuchulain and fairies, of course. 

Her info about fairies is as follows. There are two sacred fairy marks on the Irish landscape that people are still extremely superstitious about: fairy trees and fairy forts. There are 2 types of fairy trees: one is mushroom shaped and the others aren't distinctive except for the fact that if you bury a piece of straw in the ground beneath it and, three weeks later, the straw is undamaged then it's a fairy tree. A fort is the ruins of a circular house type structure that people absolutely refuse to go into. She had many tales of people who invaded either of these spaces and had very unfortunate things happen to them after. 

Our main attraction of the day was the Cliffs of Moher. 

On my second time up the cliffs, I walked away from O'Brien's tower (which I had already seen and everyone else was going to). Walking the paths that line the edge of the CoM I had the sense of being in an expansive cathedral (which, admittedly, might be because I've seen a lot of churches while I've been here). Nevertheless, that image stuck in my mind this time around. I sat a short distance from the edge facing the ocean and listened to the footsteps of tourists echo in the fog that had only partially lifted and the muted sound of the waves hundreds of feet below. 

Here is what I jotted down at the time:

There is the vastness of the ocean before me, blending into the sky so that I feel like everything substantial - farm hills, cows, fences - is behind me and what is actually real lies in front. The cliff walls themselves bear some resemblance to half a structure that has been built to act as a barrier between tangible and intangible expansiveness. Unlike a cathedral I am not looking up at the infinite vaults, but am suspended somewhere in between up and down, maybe at eye-level.

Only had an hour this time - am so glad I went with Eden before and spent the day climbing the cliffs. Next we stopped by a bonafied wishing tree/stream.

Our final stop was at the burren. She told us about the crazy biology/geology there then we headed to Galway. 

Got to know the group better over dinner (Irish stew) and drinks at THE MOST AWESOME OLD-LOOKING BAR that had an excellent Irish band that played such good music. We met up with another tour group, who will be with us tomorrow too, and played never have I ever and other drinking games. Woohoo bars and young people who like to pass the time bouncing coins into cups and playing never had I ever. Still, it was fun. Oh, and i am especially close with three people in our original nine who were telling me about Octoberfest and travels in Laos, eastern Asia and all over Europe. They had all been to Barcelona and said I seriously need to see other parts of Spain (they all agreed it was pretty touristy). They are from Australia, as are 3/4s of all of the tour groups (Aussies are taking over the world, ya'll. By way of tourism.)

While checking in at Kinlay hostel, where we will be for the first two nights, I saw this : )

Life on the edge

Wind was the word of the day from start to finish. As early as 8:30 there was a strong wind coming off the ocean and it hadn't lessened by the time we went out for bfast around 11. Two nights ago some US-ians (I feel American is an over-used term) told me that someone had actually been swept into the sea by the wind in the northern-most town in Ireland.

Speaking of fast-paced things, Eden and I listened to jig music at McGann's pub this morning, where we found some hearty bfast. The black stuff is called black pudding. Tastes kind of like sausage. I liked it. 

Took the coastal walk along the cliffs of moher today. The most impressive thing about being above the swelling sea was watching the wind peel the spray off the waves so that it looked like they were going in two directions at once. We embarked on what would become an almost 6-hour hike at high noon and so also got to see a lot of rainbows (or neat refraction action as Eden put it) on the waves. 

Made our way up to the O'brien tower at the topmost point on the cliffs and were witness to a hand fasting ceremony. I thought this was awesome luck until I saw another bride marching over to the same windy spot for her wedding as we were heading back down the cliffs an hour or two later. There were two musicians waiting with their banjos at the first wedding who played after the vows.
We both felt sorry for the bride from the warm comfort of our jackets. Her dress was bare-backed and she must have used a lot of hairspray because our hair looked like bird's nests while every hair on her head was perfectly in place throughout the ceremony. The only practical thing about her attire was the pants she had on underneath (to keep from showing everyone a bit more than they bargained for presumably).
One of the security men was holding a white fur shawl for her to put on the second the ceremony was over so that she didn't have pneumonia during her honeymoon. 

Eden said the cliffs were a good example of something in art called "Atmospheric perspective", which is where the color gets lighter the further away the object is. We hiked passed the main cliff where everyone was taking their picture sitting or lying on the edge, as we will now demonstrate:

We then went past the visitor center which was built into a hill and had two sky lights, but turned around halfway up another cliff lookout because it was too crowded. Windy as it was, the sun was drawing out the tourists like bees to honey. 

Having learned that these are the very same "Cliffs of Insanity" from the Princess Bride, Eden took on the persona of Inigo Montoya on the way down. She also alerted me to the fact that they now make shirts with the rectangular box name tag graphic ("My name is...") that fills in the rest of the quote with the actor's line, "...Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

The hike turned my sneakers into sandals (we think it was around 8 miles) and reduced Eden to moaning all night as we simply stayed in and read our respective books (she recommended some fantasy to me on her kindle and she read something called winter's heart). Not to worry, dear readers, she will survive and I now have an opportunity to buy some actual (although probably not) Irish sneakers. Eden and I take the bus back to Dublin tomorrow so that she can catch her plane home the following morning and I can hop on my bus tour of the north island.

I'll leave you with some snarky words from the wall of McGann's, some cliff cows livin' life on the edge, and yet another example of how incredibly non-intuitive Gaelic is. 

Doolin Cave

Today was sunny and gorgeous so we did a lot of walking. First we set out for the Doolin cave roughly 1 km from our hostel. Discovered that Doolin is downhill from the surrounding towns. As soon as we mounted the hill we saw the cliffs, a lot of blue that was the ocean and just how much of Doolin is grazing land for cows. I realized Eden's strange obsession with cows today when she stopped to take pictures every time we saw one. I agree that they are noble and fascinating animals but hers was bordering on fanaticism. 

The caves were frickin awesome. Our guide (younger than me) gave us a detailed account of the two men who were part of an expedition to map out all the caves in the area 60 years ago and how they broke off from their group and came across a sinkhole and underground stream that lead to this huge cavern with the world's heaviest stalactite (weighing in at 2 tons) and Europe's largest. 

It is called "the great stalactite" on all the signs advertising it and also the giant squid, because apparently it looks like a giant squid with all it's various drip formations. The two men who found it had only a 2 by 3 foot crawlspace through which to enter the cave and it took them over two hours to reach the cavern. They entered knowing that if there was any danger or nothing to be found they would have to crawl out backwards because they didn't have any space to turn around. 

"The great stalactite" doesn't look so commanding in the pictures because its against the darkness of the cave but when our guide dramatically turned on all the lights at once (to recreate the scene of the men who had turned off their gas-powered head lamps up to this point to save fuel for the trek back) it was pretty incredible. Oh, there were also fossils of coral and other sea life in the walls. The burren, glacial valley nearby and caves are all a geologist's paradise and have helped scientists to understand a lot of Ireland's pre-history (go figure, it was once tropical.) 

Our guide ended the tour by saying that there was still another three miles of unexplored caves that researchers haven't been able to explore because the crawl space is not large enough. They know how much space is left unexplored by a cool trick of putting a small amount of radioactive substance (not enough to be harmful to the ecosystem) in the stream that they then trace when it comes out the other end in the ocean. 

We then took in more of the cows and beautiful countryside (you can see for miles; all green hills and rock walls) on our way to a castle up the road. Unfortunately when we arrived we found the area marked as private property so that was as close as we got to an Irish castle. 

Afterwards, a short nap, then live music, dinner and several really persistent irish men at o'connors pub. Videos of the musicians available for showing later in person : ) It was very crowded but I recognized a lot of the tunes being played. An old man sang Molly Mallone, On the Rocky Road to Dublin and several others I am familiar with but don't know the names of. The stars on the walk back were also lovely.