May 17th: Day Twelve
Today the group went to Belfast, which is in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. It was about a two-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Dublin. After talking to some of our classmates, I think we all agree that today was the most tiring day of them all. We all really enjoyed the history and information being told to us, but deep down we all wanted to lay down and explore on our own time. I wish we had more time at the market, because thirty minutes was not enough time to find food and eat.
We first started our walking tour on the Catholic side of the city at this building that has been around since the conflict. There was a memorial on the side of the building commemorating two people who were murdered by the R.U.C. on August 15th, 1969. Once was a young boy named Patrick Rooney who was nine years old. The second was a young adult named Hugh McCabe who was twenty years old.
Another place we stopped at on the Catholic side was a primary school called St. Comgalls, which opened in 1932. It was interesting to me because you could still see bullet holes in the side of the building. It is really crazy to think about, because these children could have been in school while those shots were fired into the building. School should be a place you feel safe being in, so I could not imagine the feelings of those children.
Later, we then made it to the protestant side of the city where I feel there was a lot more “hate” being shown towards the Catholics. There was also more support about the conflict, rather than memorials commemorating people. On their side of the wall, it seems more protected. The buildings were further from the walls, and they had more fences on their homes to protect them from anything being thrown over the wall.
After our walking tour, we walked back to the city center, where Kira and I decided we wanted to get a banana milkshake from McDonalds since we do not have that flavor back home. After almost drinking it all, we discovered there was a glove in our milkshake. The whole time we thought our straw kept getting stuck on a piece of banana. Not a glove.
To make up for our misfortune, we got pretzels from Auntie Annes, and made our way back to the bus that brought us back to Dublin. The bus ride back was very interesting. Our bus driver almost hit a lady crossing the street, which was the ladies fault, but it still almost happened!