Category: northern ireland

i took the 2 hour train ride from dublin, ireland up to belfast, northern ireland for a daytrip, and it was great! interestingly, despite the united kingdom having very strict covid quarantine requirements for incoming international travelers at the time, i was able to legally circumvent these by arriving directly from ireland overland, thanks to the rules of free movement and no border checks within the “common travel area” (cta). so, even during covid times, but also any other time, this was an easy daytrip, and one i’d definitely recommend!

i really enjoyed wandering around belfast (on one of the hottest days of the year), and seeing the titanic museum, the political murals relating to the troubles, and the international solidarity wall.

the titanic was built in belfast, northern ireland, which was the center of the world’s shipbuilding industry at that time. there is a relatively new, world-class museum devoted to the titanic story on the belfast waterfront, which is quite impressive.

 

belfast, northern ireland has a tumultuous recent history. “the troubles” were persistent ethnonationalist violence from the 1960s to the 1990s between the protestants/unionists/loyalists and the catholics/nationalists/republicans over the political status of northern ireland. thankfully the violence has subsided since the good friday agreement in 1998, but a literal wall still divides sections belfast city, and remarkably, automated gates still close at 10pm every evening to divide/protect the communities from each other overnight.

in west belfast along and near shankill road there are many politically inspired murals. most are on the protestant/unionist/loyalist side, though the catholic/nationalist/republican side has some too. there are memorials to various killings and bombings as well. probably the best way to see these is to a take a black cab tour, in which a local drives you around in a classic northern irish black cab and explains the context of the troubles and the murals. due to inadequate planning on my part and a desire to minimize costs, i opted to skip the tour and walk my own black cab tour route, after reading the wikipedia article on the troubles and identifying the route of a typical tour, and i think i got a pretty good sense of things, though it did take essentially all day. for me, this was the highlight of my time on the island of ireland.

on one section of the wall that divides protestant and catholic belfast, northern ireland, there are a number of murals supporting causes of justice internationally, known as the solidarity wall. while less locally relevant than the surrounding protestant and catholic political murals, they are still quite eye-catching and interesting!