082106

21-23rd August - Belfast

I have to tell you that we had slight trepidations about even going to Northern Ireland. Belfast has been a troubled place for most of our adult lives and those memories are not easily erased.

We arrived in Belfast in the early afternoon, and most of our anxiety was already gone. Belfast at first glance looked like any other European town and the bus station looked better than most. We hadn't had lunch yet so we crossed the street and had a nice sandwich at a "Subway." Kevin O'Brien, the owner of the B&B suggested that his place was only a short walk from the bus station or we could take a cab. I was still sore from the cab in Dublin so since it was a nice day and we decided to walk. I had checked out the walk from the bus to the B&B on Google Map and knew what we were in for, but I wasn't quite sure of my orientation. I asked the clerks at Subway to point the way to the Royal Victoria Hospital (across the street from the B&B). The clerks discussed it and guessed that it was "that way."

After lunch, we started to walk "that way" and after a while (probably a mile or so) concluded that "that way" was the wrong way. So I did the "wussy" thing and asked a guy on the street for directions. He was very reluctant to tell me (afraid I'd get mad) that we were 90° off and would have to start over. He was very nice and stayed with us until he was sure we were on the right road. He said he was going in that direction anyway. We basically walked back to within one block of the bus station. Once we were on the right road, it was only about 5-6 blocks. And, of course, there was a massive road construction going on and we had to thread ourselves through it to get to the right road. Belfast is building a new freeway interchange to replace a roundabout and that's what we had to walk around/through, etc.

We had picked the B&B from the Internet and I was still reticent about the neighborhood. But, when I saw that the B&B was across the street from a large children's hospital, I went ahead and booked it. If there was still trouble in Belfast, we couldn't have picked a worse neighborhood. The B&B was a block and a half from the Sinn Fein headquarters. Sinn Fein was the extreme militant group during the troubled times in the 70's. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon. The street in front of the B&B was deserted with all the shops shuttered and closed. The street had a "worker's party" office, along with walls that were covered with anti-Blair, anti-Bush and anti-Israel posters. What had we gotten ourselves into?

For those not familiar with the history of Northern Ireland - Bobby Sands (pictured above) tried to convince the British Government to treat the Irish rebels as prisoners of war rather than criminals. To make his point he went on a hunger strike and died. A couple of days before his death he was elected a Member of Parliament by an overwhelming margin. -- The picture on the right is one of a continuous string of "black cabs".

Checked in with the B&B, http://www.springfield.net / and found our room. The room was really small, just a little larger than the double bed. But it did have a nice en-suite. The room was clean and recently remodeled. Kevin promised to move us to a larger room the next day (and he did) [the new room was really noisy - like sleeping in the middle of a freeway]. We had a little nap and then had to figure out what to do for dinner.

The Sunday afternoon choices were a little sparse. After wandering around for a bit, we concluded that our best bet was a Chinese take-away just across the street and around the corner - didn't look open but it was. The cooks were Asian and the counterperson and delivery guy were Irish. We took the food home and had a very nice Chinese dinner sitting on the bed. But, after Dublin, the food was good, plentiful, and cheap. Two dishes with rice was more than we could eat

Next morning we headed for PRONI (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland) on the South side of town. Kevin suggested that we take the local taxi-buses, "Black Cabs." We told him of our hard luck in Dublin with taxis and he said that the taxi-buses only cost a pound, GBP, a head to go downtown.

During the time of trouble, several times the city buses were hi-jacked and used to block traffic. The government responded by shutting down the buses. The locals responded by buying up the old black cabs in London and carrying commuters to work by cab. Everybody shares and you just wave down the next "Black Cab" that has room and it takes you to a fixed spot downtown. The city has regular cabs and buses as well. The first day we took the city bus but later we tried the black cabs - worked fine.

We went into the center of town and switched buses at the City Hall Square. The city center shows no signs or ever having had troubles and as we headed out of town to the south, the suburbs seemed oblivious to there ever having been fighting. We later learned that the troubles had pretty much been confined to the ring of old neighborhoods around the heart of the city. During the uprising the city pretty much continued to function with most people avoiding the hot spots and avoiding downtown after dark.

PRONI was located in a very nice residential neighborhood, but not on a bus route. Two different buses come to with a quarter mile - strange. The facility competes very well with The National Library in Dublin with the addition of issuing picture ID badges to those who visit and having a very nice cafeteria. By the time we got there it was close enough to lunchtime that we chose to eat before tackling the archives.

A PRONI advisor greeted us and the first thing he told us was that they had no birth, death or marriage records at this archive. Nancy gave the advisor the address of her grandmother's birth and the guy got real excited. He, too, had been born in that same neighborhood, but the neighborhood had been torn down and rebuilt twice since then.

The advisor suggested that I might find a clue about my ggg-father in the National School records, but the records were very scarce before 1900. Nancy searched for traces of Honey's father, a coachman and her maternal grandparents. We pretty well drew a blank. She also looked up the Fairbairn family in the landowners books and found nothing.

The Titanic was built in Belfast and so were its sister ships Britannic and Olympia. When the Titanic was being built, it could be seen from nearly everywhere in Belfast. In order to build these large ships they needed to build some very big cranes (bridge cranes). The ships are long gone (the Britannic was sunk off Greece during WWI) but the cranes (the biggest in the world at the time) still stand. The shipyards are pretty much gone now but the area that they stood is being redeveloped into a very large tourist center. A replica of the bow and stern of the Titanic will be built and integrated into museums, shops and various attractions. The plan is to have this attraction center finished by the year 2012, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking

In addition to the dry docks being converted to an entertainment center, the west end of town is being rebuilt with a concert hall and sports stadium. The tower in the picture above is Albert's Clock. Erected during the time of Queen Victoria. The clock is the transition between the city and the redevolopment area. You may notice two things about the picture. The Titanic cranes are just behind it and the clock tower is leaning - "the leaning tower of Belfast." A considerable amount of effort and concrete rescued it, but they left it tip a little.

Tuesday morning we caught the Sightseeing bus - advertised as "a hop on - hop off bus." Nancy had picked up their flyer and it showed that one of the hop on points was just a block or so away. We stood at the curb and waited. After a wait - a long wait, we rechecked the brochure and found the place was right but the time was wrong. On mid-week days the bus doesn't start until later and then it took about an hour to get to us. So, we hopped a black taxi and met it at its start.

I have mixed feelings about the sightseeing bus. The times of troubles have passed, but the bus featured all the damage and trouble spots of the city. I also must confess to having a macabre interest is the artifacts. The most obvious memorabilia of that time were the murals. Scattered thought the city and preserved for posterity are murals, painted by both sides of the conflict.

Most of the troubled neighborhoods had been in the housing originally built for the worker in the linen mills. Most were "two up - two down" with an outhouse in the back yard. In some of the company housing one cold water tap served as many as six houses. In order to separate the neighborhoods and to contain the violence, walls had been built. Some of the walls were as high as seventy feet. These higher walls were intended to stop the rock throwing - both as a high barrier and to keep the kids from being able to see targets.

One of the main hotels, The Europa, in town now brags that it had been bombed over 40 times. Not all the bombs went off. The public buildings took most of the pounding, particularly the courthouses and the police stations. The courthouses are all boarded up and there are plans to make them into museum or cultural centers or something.

The police are the only one unwilling to forget. The army troops reinforcements are now gone but the police (at least at night) run around in very heavily armored vehicles. The police stations are fortresses - double walled, no windows, heavy gates, labyrinth entries and some reportable have an outer blast wall as thick as twenty feet. Hopefully, with time, this will all be a bad memory.

Nancy had mentioned to Kevin, the B&B proprietor, that she was looking for a good wool shop to buy some Irish wool. Kevin mentioned it to his mother and she suggested that Kevin take the two of them to her favorite shop in the town of Bangor. So, Tuesday afternoon we piled into Kevin's car and headed to Bangor, about a half-hour east of Belfast. The shop had exactly what Nancy had been searching to find ever since we got Ireland. She picked up some Irish wool and some Aran patterns.

Wednesday morning we were to return to Bristol, our fight was scheduled for 1:30 in the afternoon and so we had to be to the airport by 11:30. We packed and went down for breakfast. We were just finishing up breakfast and talking with the other guests when we heard a muffled crash upstairs. Nancy said that we had nothing that would fall over but she'd go check. The ceiling had fallen right on to our bed.

The plaster had separated from the lathe, broken into small pieces and dust and had spread all over the room and bathroom. Once it got over being quite so funny, it dawned on us that an hour earlier the pieces would have fallen right on our heads

Kevin was very glad that no one was hurt and insisted that he could at least drive us out the airport - about 20 miles. With the extra time we gained by letting Kevin drive us to the airport we went back to the town center for a little last minute touring and shopping. And, it gave Kevin the time needed to start cleaning up the mess and call in a repair crew.

The trip to the airport and flight were uneventful. Everything went as expected until we started our approach to Bristol. If was obvious that the plane was slowing down. Looking forward we saw lightening and a thunderstorm right over the Bristol airport. The airplane crew was stalling - hoping the worst would past. Couldn't wait any longer and landed. Bristol doesn't have jetways, you just walk down the stairs out in the open and walk (run) to the terminal. It was raining, it was pouring, water was coming down in buckets. You may remember that they had taken most of our hand-luggage so very few of us had umbrellas. I had one but any part of the body that couldn't be under the umbrella got soaked.

We got into the terminal and to the luggage claim area. Remember I told you that because of the new "regs" the luggage was being carried in open, flatbed trucks. They had no provisions to cover the luggage in the rain. The luggage got drenched and took a couple of days to dry. Even our dirty clothes that were in a plastic bag were wet.

In the end the Belfast trip was a success and I wouldn't have changed too many things