Oh wow. In just a few short hours, I am going to be getting on a plane and flying south...and west....very, very far west. I've come so far in 6 weeks that I hardly know how to begin. Or end. I guess I'll start with my last whirlwind trip and my last day in one of my new favorite cities.
I decided on Saturday that I wanted to go to Belfast, and go I did. I booked a train from Connolly Station in Dublin to take me the just over 2 hour trip to Northern Ireland's capital. On my previous trip North, when I went to the Giant's Causeway and Derry, I had spent a grand total of about 30 minutes in Belfast, and most of that was inside the bus station, but I knew right then that I wanted to go back and explore more of the city.
The first thing I noticed was that Belfast is so obviously not Dublin. What I mean by this is that the city itself just feels different. Dublin is a globalized city that is growing quickly. It is diverse(ish) and metropolitan and bustling. Belfast contains elements of those as well, but there is a curtain hanging over the city of the intense history and troubles that the city has faced. And even today, these troubles are completely gone. The Protestant and Catholic sides of the city have these fences called "Peace Fences" which are closed and locked tight on nights and on weekends in order to ensure peace between the two sectors, which are literally right next to each other. I could not help but get drawn into the city. It was so rich and deep, I just wanted to take it all in.
I took a bus tour that drove around the city and gave its history, and then went on "The Belfast Wheel," which is basically a miniature of the London Eye, and got a birds eye view of the city, along with about 13 minutes of commentary. I was in a carriage alone, so it was another chance to just soak in what I saw. However, as much as I was loving Belfast, Kathy (my host mom) suggested that I would really like this living history museum about a 15 minute train ride out of Belfast, so I decided to make time for that. It turned out, that this was a very good thing.
The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum has quite literally transplanted a 19th century Northern Irish town and set it up. There is the "town" section and a "rural" section (which felt like I had stepped back into time in the Irish countryside). And, because it was the May Day Bank Holiday, they had May Day celebrations all throughout the "town." If you know me, you know I was right at home.
I spent a few hours there before making my way back to Belfast (ok quick side story: I didn't really know where this museum was, so I went to the tourist office to ask how to get there; the lady told me the name of the stop I needed to get off of at the train, so I bought a ticket and made my way there. Everything is fine and dandy, right? NO. I got off of the train at the Cultra stop and I thought I had gotten off at an abandoned station. There were no attendants, no buildings, no nothing but track. I was out in the middle of nowhere with no idea where I was supposed to be going and out of the country twice over--as Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom.
Luckily just up the street was an Inn and Spa, the only building around for what seemed like miles and they were able to point me in the right direction, but I definitely had a minor meltdown for a minute there. Back in Belfast, I walked around the city, just to see. It was incredible. The history...I can't even really put it into words, but it blew me away. After a quick dinner, I made my way back to the train station to come back to the Republic of Ireland...and just a different world.
I've been reading a book about the history of Ireland and I just read about the 1916 Easter Rising and the struggles with men like Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins with the English, and then the beginnings of the Troubles in the North, and everything just becomes so much clearer. Did you know that for a long time, Northern Ireland was the "most Irish" part of the country, and that's why the Stuart kings started setting up English Plantations in the North and began to Anglicize it, making it the divided country it is today. Suddenly, all of that is so much clearer to me.
Today, I went to Dublin for the last time of my trip. There were a couple of things I wanted to do that I hadn't had the chance to yet, so I thought I'd better. First, was going to the crypt at St. Michan's Church. It's out in kind of a run down area of the city and so far out I hadn't wanted to walk out before, but I have recently discovered the Luas, a trolley like system within the city, which had a stop like right in front of the church, so I went. Um ok, it was awesome.
There are some natural methane gasses and limestone in the crypt which have preserved the bodies almost perfectly in the coffins. There are four in particular that range from a couple hundred to 800 years old that you can see are just incredible. The 800 year old body is a man who could have possibly been a Crusader, because he was buried with his legs crossed. According to myth, it is good luck to shake his hand. Now obviously, they wouldn't let us shake his hand, but a slight graze of the finger is considered the same....so....I touched the hand of an 800 year old Crusader. Awesome. Not even kidding. Then I went to the Decorative Arts and History Museum, which was just one Luas station next to St. Michan's. That was really cool too, just my kind of thing. They had a really interesting exhibit on the 1916 Rising, which was perfect timing for me.
And now here I am, 11:24 at night and I fly out at 10:55 in the morning. This has been a great trip. I don't feel changed; I'm not the kind of person who is going to change her entire life over one trip, but I am taking away something from it. For one, I'll be the only World History teacher in North Carolina to teach Irish history along with everything else. For another, I've learned to travel alone and not panic.
I appreciate my Jeep much more too--I have taken 7 different forms of public transportation since I've been here. And surprisingly enough, I appreciate American history much more. I appreciate what we stand for and how far we've come in so short a time. I appreciate what the American Revolution really accomplished. There are two Irish "rebels" buried at St. Michan's who lived at the same time of the American Revolution. Our guide was telling us how they failed, were captured, hanged, drawn, and quartered (a gruesome process that I am going to spare you the details of if you don't know them). Had they succeeded and lived, they would have been known not as rebels but revolutionaries--as Founding Fathers.
Had our own Founding Fathers failed, they may have held the same fates as these two men rather than becoming writers of the Consititution, Presidents, Secretaries of the Treasury, Senators, ect. But most of all, I'm going to take away a richness of culture that is so entrenched in its people that it exhudes from them. That's why I love the people here so much. That's why I've grown to love Ireland more than I thought I would. That's why I'll be back.