Saturday, May 17th, 2025
Today kick started a weekend in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As mentioned in the previous blog, we had a guest lecture yesterday with Dr. Niall Gilmartin about mediating the Troubles and now he will our guide for today as we embark to Belfast.
Today started kind of early, we met in the lobby at 8:45 AM to board the bus. Once aboard and comfortable, I immediately went back to sleep. It took roughly two to two and a half hours to get to Belfast from Dublin, and we stopped along the way for a bathroom break.
When we arrived in Belfast, we began our city tour in the area known as the “Titanic Quarter”. This area, home to the Titanic Museum, was once the greatest ship building yard in the world. Dr. Gilmartin explained while we stood outside of the museum of the shipyards importance to Belfast history, at one point being the single employer to over 300,000 people, and building some of the most influential ships of all time, like the Olympia and (most infamously) the Titanic.
Although we did not go inside the museum as a group, we did go into the Titanic Hotel across the street to see the original room where engineers and architects tirelessly worked to design the ships.
After the Titanic Quarter, at around 12:30 PM, we arrived at St. George’s Market. A place with various food and shopping vendors, we got about 40 minutes to an hour to explore and get something to eat. I got a savory crepe that had eggs, bacon, cheese, and maple syrup in it. Although big, it was quite delicious.
After St. George’s Market, it was time to begin our 2-hour long walking tour of West Belfast – an area heavily impacted by the times known as the Troubles. Like for the RTÉ blog and article, I am going to discuss less in this blog post about the tour as it will be covered more in depth in my article (so stay tuned for that :)).
The quick overview however, we toured West Belfast and saw areas heavily impacted by the Troubles. It was quite the site to behold, and although it is now a very safe city, it was intriguing to see how dangerous and devastating the conflict was and the impact it still has on people today. We toured Falls Road and Shankill Road, streets heavily impacted by the Troubles. We were fortunate to have Dr. Gilmartin as our tour guide, who provided not only his expertise, but also his personal experiences growing up during the conflict.
By the end of the tour we arrived in the City Centre (as mentioned) and had one hour to shop and explore, when that hour was done, everyone was to meet in front of City Hall to leave. I gathered the group of people who were set to stay with myself in a hotel for the next two nights to further explore Belfast. This group consisted of myself, Sav, Max, and Maddie. We gathered together in front of the bus, said our goodbyes to the group, and set off for our second free weekend of the trip.
The rest of the night consisted of us getting settled into the hotel room, going out to get dinner, watching the Eurovision final, then turning in for the night in preparation for a busy day the next day. Tune into the next blog post to see what the rest of our fun-filled weekend looks like!