22 September 2013 – Belfast and the North.

From Carrickfergus, we headed back down the road to Belfast. After what could be described as an experimental method of finding where we needed to go (just as well we allowed plenty of time), we met Sam, our guide for a black taxi tour of Belfast. This focussed on the history of the Troubles, and showed some of the areas which are strongly Protestant or Catholic. The Protestant area had a lot of murals depicting their view of history.

The Catholic area we were shown had a memorial to people killed in the troubles – some IRA volunteers and some civilians.

We also saw the Peace Wall dividing 2 areas with some of the bitterest fighting over the years.

It was interesting talking to our guide about his thoughts on the future of Northern Ireland. He thinks that the Peace Walls (there are other, smaller ones in different parts of Belfast) will eventually be able to come down but probably not in the lifetimes of anyone who saw the violence in the 1970s and 80s. He mentioned that part of the compromises involved in peace talks in the 1990s was that Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK as long as that is the will of the people, and that there will be a referendum on this in 2030, by which time the population of Northern Ireland is projected to have a higher population of Catholics than of Protestants. Interestingly, informal polling suggests that a majority of Catholics don’t want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic yet, probably because the peace is still far too fragile for such a change.

The tour was excellent, very interesting and informative. The guide gave a toned down view of some of the details of the violence, as this was the child-friendly version of the tour. Still a lot to think about.

We left Belfast after only a few hours – we definitely can’t spend as much time as we’d like when we only have 2 weeks for all of Ireland. We headed up the coast to Islandmagee – no need for a ferry or even a bridge, because Islandmagee is not in fact and island, but a peninsula. Some of our family’s ancestors are from Islandmagee so it was interesting to have a look around.

We had a look around a small village on Islandmagee called Port Muck, where we did a bit of a coastal walk and poked around an old lookout for deterring smugglers.

We had some lunch and continued up the coast, through Larne (another place of family significance) and other towns beside the sea.

The day had been a little overcast, but it cleared as we arrived at Glenariff Forest Park. There is a famous waterfall walk which unfortunately is currently closed after a big storm earlier in the year, but there were plenty of other lovely walks to do and we did see one waterfall.

Our stop for the night was Downhill Hostel, a lovely place right on the beach at the very top of Northern Ireland. We ran around and played on the beach until it was getting dark then headed in for dinner and a relaxing evening in the hostel lounge room reading, playing board games and catching up on putting photos into this diary and posting it on line.