Part of my recent trip had us visiting Northern Ireland. For those of you that don’t know Northern Ireland is the part of the island that is a separate entity from the rest of Ireland.
Northern Ireland is a place that in many ways defies logic. The border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is open. With the exception of a few small signs, you would not know that you are crossing a border. Yet, the atmosphere in N. Ireland is distinctively different. The people of N. Ireland live with an uneasy peace that the government is working hard to maintain.
We visited two cities in N. Ireland, Derry/Londonderry, and Belfast. Our first stop was to Derry/Londonderry. To better understand the types of problems that N. Irelanders face one simply has to ask a resident of Derry/Londonderry where they live. If you ask someone that aligns themselves with Ireland they will tell you, Derry. But if you ask someone that aligns with England and they will say Londonderry. Throughout the town, you will see neighborhoods where they fly the Irish flag and then a few blocks down, neighborhoods where they fly the Union Jack.
Since the peace agreement, known as the Good Friday Agreement, a delicate form of normalcy has reigned. Massive investment by the EU has helped restore the economy and allowed people to resume their routine lives.
We had the great fortune to take a walking tour of the city with the award-winning tour guide Ronan McNamara. Ronan, an Irish born Buddhist, is a mesmerizing speaker with tremendous knowledge about N. Ireland. His tour was a history lesson in just a few hours. Should you ever have a chance to visit N. Ireland be sure to book a tour with this gentleman.
Evidence of the past troubles is everywhere. The notable absence of trash cans in the city is a stark reminder of the days when the bins were used to plant bombs.
We had an opportunity to walk across the Peace Bridge. The Peace Bridge opened in 2011, which linked two historically conflicting neighborhoods, is just one of the symbols of a more hopeful future.
In Belfast, the history of conflict is less obvious until you get out to the residential neighborhoods. It is there that you still see the symbols of conflict like walls dividing housing developments and portraits of political figures that still incite memories of the past.
One stop for most tourists is the wall that has long divided two of Belfast’s neighborhoods. Today it is called The Peace Wall, a place where tourists come to see the history and sign the wall offering hope that the wall will someday become little more than a symbol of a pointless past struggle.
Fortunately, many of the younger generation residents are learning to live and love each other as members of a common community. Schools are being integrated, the walls that used to separate neighborhoods are being torn down. The government of N. Ireland has a schedule to have all the walls of division taken down by 2023.
Hopefully, the wounds of the past will heal and the next generation of N. Ireland citizens will learn to live in peaceful harmony.
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