Belfast and Irish Countryside

Travel report on Belfast (mainly about The Troubles) and other tourist sites in Ireland.

Hello my name is DAV rgear and this is the second half of my travel report on Ireland and in the first video I showed scenes from Dublin and I had a couple actors read a couple excerpts from James Joyce’s Ulisses which took place in Dublin and so if you haven’t seen that

Video go back and see that and uh in this video what I want to do is start off in Belfast and I’ll look primarily at the whole issue of the troubles that took place there 25 years ago or so and then I join a tour group and we go to

Other places in uh Northern Ireland and the Republic and similar the tourist sites there so anyway uh sit back and uh enjoy a little bit more about Ireland so when I knew that I’d be going to Belfast I decided that one of the things I wanted to do was to learn more about

The troubles that occurred there and was prominent in the news in the 1970s 80s and ’90s and uh really terrible things were happening there was terrorism terrorist acts taking place almost on a daily basis and car bombings and shootings and hijackings and people who were dying in jail from hunger

Strikes and it was just a tremendous awful conflict that went on for a long time and so I wanted to just uh sort of try and have a better understanding of that and uh see if there’s anything to learn in today’s world uh around what they went through so the first thing

That I did was I I scheduled a black cab tour which is a tour where a fellow picks you up in one of these London black cabs and he’ll tour you around the different places where these where this uh uh conflict took place in Falls Road

Shankill Road and the peace wall and so on and so uh one morning then this uh fell came and picked me up in the black cab and the first question he asked was so what do you know about the about the troubles and uh so I said well I know

What I learned from the news and he says well if that’s all you know is what you got from the news you don’t know anything and so he said let me tell you what really happened and so then um for the next 90 minutes I got a total earful

On on uh the real scoop on what happened there and uh so he said the first thing you need to know is some history about what happened and so what I’m going to do is give you a a short uh Co notes version of History leading up to the

Conflict and uh so so that’ll be a little bit of background so some of the history as I came to understand it sort of goes as the following and uh the first inhabitants of the of Ireland the islands of Ireland were Kelts as in Celtic people and so they lived there

And had their own uh traditions and religion and they were pagan people up until about the 4th Century ad when monks from Europe went to Ireland and established monasteries and these were uh centers of learning and uh Commerce and literature and all these kinds of things and so then uh they were uh

Catholic and so essentially the whole country adopted Christianity I.E Catholicism and uh so that went on for some time and uh the country flourished and did well uh up until about the 7th century when the Vikings invaded Ireland and they were then the first very different foreign

Invaders uh to the lands and uh they were there uh for some time and were eventually defeated and then the Anglo Normans were the next to come and invade and then following that was the British who became then the long-term uh foreign occupiers of of of the land

And so the British remained as the colonial power uh governing Ireland right up until the end of the 20th century really and so but back in the 17th century King Henry VII was the king and uh by this time the the royalty in England had adopted had abandoned the

Catholic church and were now Protestant and so then the King Henry VII declared that all of the the Catholic monasteries in Ireland should be uh declared not monasteries and they’re property confiscated and the people who lived there would become surfs and made the work there and so on and so then that

Was uh that all of that helped to set the stage for this major conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants and this was also the time that Oliver Cromwell went on a rampage and and uh conf ISC at and slaughtered people and uh uh uh captured a lot of

These monasteries and uh so that that was going on also and then on top of that in 1690 then the the British Parliament uh passed laws called the bo penal laws which made it against the law for an for a Catholic person to own property or have educ ation or participate in public

Service or any of these kind of things just and the the the effort being to to abolish Catholicism outright and of course that didn’t work and uh so then and and over the next couple centuries various attempts were made to establish independent rule from Britain but that didn’t happen until

194 I think it is where there was a small war of independence and then at that time they signed an agreement with Britain that said that Ireland could have home rule and that the British would no longer Rule and uh the minor problem with that was that in Northern

Ireland around Belfast there was by this time a large Protestant population there and they were uh afraid that if they were part of a country that was ruled by the the by by the Catholics that they might well uh be under severe uh retribution measures given everything

Else that happened so they broke off and had partition with South part of Ireland and they formed Northern Ireland and the South the South part of Ireland became the Republic of Ireland and following partition in Northern Ireland the Catholics up there still felt that they were not equal

Members of society and had all their rights restored uh uh the way they wanted and so in 1969 there was a demonstration in Belfast where violence erupted and that became then the start of of uh terrorist tactics on both sides the Irish and the Protestant and the IRA being on one side

And ster forces being on the other and it just there was a long cycle of violence and terrorist activity that that took place uh uh and shootings and car bombings and uh uh Catholic uh uh protesters who were jailed went on hunger strikes in the jail and Bobby

Sans was a prominent name of those and he died in jail uh just weeks after he had been voted to be a MP in Parliament and so then uh this whole cycle of violence and terrorism went on until uh Good Friday of 1998 that’s almost 30 years and at that time they

Signed in the The Good Friday agreement which uh both sides came together and said enough is enough we can’t keep on killing each other and so they signed this agreement and uh that is now 25 years uh we’re 25 years hence and uh the violence is by and large uh uh subsid

Ided and there is still deep tension between the Catholics and Protestants and I’ll talk more about that when I show the pictures of the peace wall and so on but anyway that was uh uh that was in a sense a a good resolution to a longstanding and entrenched conflict

Between two peoples and so uh that it goes to show that when you have such a long-standing conflict uh it can be resolved if if the parties agreed to it so that’s what happened in this case so what I’ll do now I’ll show some pictures of the the troubles area and uh

Some of this was shot on the tour with the guide but most of it was shot on the following day when I did my own walking tour of the two areas the Catholic area and the Protestant area and so one of the things you commonly see is uh

Paintings on the Gable end of houses uh depicting different things and then the walls there’s a piece of wall and other walls and they all have graffiti and paintings and so on on them so anyway uh uh have a Look [Applause] a oh Oh [Applause] So those are some of the pictures from the troubles area on the buildings and fences and some of those are signs that uh indicate the marking of territory for different groups that are there and also common are pictures and commemoration of people who died and also just regular uh political uh statements showing

Solidarity for your [Applause] group the next couple of pictures coming up are pictures of gates in the wall and these gates are open during the daytime but they lock them at night because there’s just not enough trust between the two sides to to risk having those Gates open and someone coming across in

The cover of darkness and causing Problems and these are a couple pictures of the side streets in the area and it’s hard to imagine that these tidy and orderly streets were the sight of such violence over such a long period of Time on my first night in Belfast I stumbled upon a demonstration in support of Palestine and it’s also common to see artwork on the walls and so on in support of Palestinians and it seems that the Irish Catholics anyway have feel some shared historical experiences of being colonized and uh being under

The domination of of a foreign power and uh commentators in Ireland are suggesting that what the Middle East needs is a Belfast moment where all sides can come together and decide to put their on their arms and uh find some way that they can live next to each Other and just to show that Belfast is not just about the troubles here are a couple pictures from the city and what you see here is Belfast City Hall and has a beautiful uh stained glass windows and then there’s a couple images and video from the area around the Titanic

Museum which everybody says is a mustsee which I didn’t see but uh maybe next time anyway that’s it for this Belfast part of the Video Oh I’ve joined the tour group now and we’re heading north of Belfast along this rather nice Scenic uh Coastal Road So I’m in Northern Ireland now and uh we’re about to see the the interesting Stone formation at the north of the island and uh they’ve been having big storms here lately so the weather’s been pretty pretty dodgy but it’s not too bad today and uh that’s actually Scotland you can see behind me

There and uh so uh it’s the second day of our tour so we’ll carry On we’ve now arrived at the Giant’s Causeway site and it’s the place that has these tall stone columns that were apparently formed 40 million years ago from a volcano and uh anyway here are some pictures from the site E Oh And now we’re back on the road again and the next couple of pictures will be of the beach trees that are uh scenes from The Game of Thrones movie and uh then after that we uh roll into gallway and a couple pictures from there and a couple

Selfies of me with uh the goldway girl and another one with me on the bench with Oscar wild and another fellow called Edward vild I can’t say I know who he is but anyway there there it Is And now we’re back in the country and what you see here is a Pete bog and what they do is they cut Pete into these squares that you see there let them dry in the Sun and then they use that as fuel in the fireplace in the wintertime

And so that’s going to be a new uh bucket list item to sit by a fireplace burning Pete and maybe drinking some whiskey but uh that’ll be for next time and the next place we come to is a place called Kyle Moore Abbey and this

Is a huge estate of a th000 Acres or so and it’s run by benedi tee monks from Belgium and so what they have is a fully functioning farm and a big operation and there’s a big Abbey that you’ll see pictures of and a gothic church and tea

House and uh big rambling estate and so we spent a full afternoon sort of exploring this uh quite interesting Site Oh Oh These are a couple pictures from the city of Karne and it’s evening time so we had a little Walkabout before going to a pub for some uh music and drinks her shoulder up her eyes Sh thank you on this day we set out to EXP for a couple castles and this first one is called dungar castle and then there’s another one called Ross castle and uh Ross castle apparently was one of the last castles that Oliver Cromwell captured in the mid 1600s when he went

Through this area causing Mayhem and slaughtering people and stealing property all in the Name of the King back home so uh we’ll go and uh check out these places Our next stop was the Cliffs of Moher which is a must uh SE place in Ireland and uh seems there are a lot of cliffs around the coast of Ireland but anyway these are highly impressive and it was nice to get out for a nice big long walk in the country There what you see here is a monument to St Brendan and St Brendan was a Irish monk from around about the period of 400 ad and he and his three compatriots in that little ship that you see depicted there they sailed from gway to North America

And back and uh so discovered uh North America but thousand years before Christopher Columbus did and it said that when Christopher Columbus uh sailed to the new world he stopped at gallway to pay respect to St Brendan and say that he was going to follow in his path

So uh there’s a little bit of revisionist history for you one day we went to a sheep farm and we saw a demonstration on how they use border Coles to her sheep and so it was a cold and windy rainy day but the dogs and the sheep and the handlers all

Performed admirably so it was a very good demonstration and as we were leaving another van was pulling up so I think that those sheep and the dogs are going to have to go through that same routine one more time so the day wasn’t over for them but anyway very Interesting Now bger Collies have been used uh for the rounding up of sheep for up to 800 years that’s a long Time Here we are in the city of cork and it’s a last stop on this Intrepid tour that I’m on before heading on to Dublin and uh as has been the case with just about every place we went too we had far too little time to really get a feel for The

Place Beyond just sort of wet your appetite for it but uh I can say that Ireland is a highly interesting and conial place to travel to and uh with the friendly people and the good food and uh culture and the Guinness beer and the scenery and history it all makes for

A for a highly interesting place to visit so I’ll see if I make a return trip sometime but anyway that’s it for this video thanks for watching and uh Happy Trails to all of you thanks Bye