On my twelfth day in Ireland I went to Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. We woke up early and took a private bus over to the city.
Our first destination was the Titanic Museum at the Belfast Harbor. The Titanic is an important part of Belfasts History. Belfast began as a port city and evolved over time to become the capital. During the 1900s the city was heavily reliant on it’s ship building industry, which Irish people took great pride of. The most infamous ship constructed here was the Titanic. Sadly we were unable to enter the museum due to time restrictions but it was still interesting to see.
After a short but replenishing lunch at a local market place in downtown Belfast, we met with our tour guide and began our troubles focused tour. The tour began at an apartment building where casualties of the troubles occurred. From there we were brought to murals promoting peace not just for Belfast but for conflicts all over the world, including Gaza.
We were brought to memorial sites for both Protestants and Catholics. It was interesting seeing how both memorials honored the dead but were derogative of the other side of the conflict. We were brought to both Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast. The most interesting thing to me was that the Catholic neighborhoods flew Irish flags and the Protestants flew the UK flag.
I remember feeling somewhat bewildered here, because to me both neighborhoods looked fundamentally the same, but they were treated like they were parts of two separate worlds. It was astonishing to me that these communities are still separated to this day and that the automated gates that close of certain neighborhoods still operate.
This was a very educational visit and really enlightened me to the struggles of other countries and how some conflicts are as complex as they are terrible.