Photos from Dublin, Galway and Belfast

Greetings! This post includes some of my photos from Ireland (Dublin and Galway) and Northern Ireland (Belfast), which I wasn't able to post earlier. Barbara has already posted photos on some of those places, so forgive me if there's some repetition here.

In Dublin we stayed with a local young man who took very good care of us--his house is in the neighborhood in the photo to the right, typical of single-story or two-story row houses in the areas where folks of moderate means tend to live.

While we might often think of Ireland as only Irish in its population, in fact during Ireland's boom years (1990's and early 2000's) when it was one of the faster-growing economies in Europe, it attracted a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe as well as from the Middle East and South Asia. The photo to the left indicates how diverse at least pockets of the largest city in Ireland, Dublin, have become (one of our favorite lunch cafes there was Deli O'Delhi, which featured both an excellent vegetarian Indian buffet and friendly owners).

By chance and good luck, we were also able to experience another diversity while we were in Dublin--the annual "Dublin Pride" festival, celebrating the lives and experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people around the city. We took part in a two-hour GLBT history walk, which gathered for departure at the statue of Oscar Wilde (a famous gay author who grew up in a home kitty-corner across the street from this monument) (the photo at right includes the walk organizers around and on top of the monument--Oscar himself is the greenish figure on the upper right). This was a great way to learn more about the past century of GLBT life in Dublin.

Yet a third kind of diversity we encountered was in the small museum of the history and life of Jews in Dublin--a population which has dwindled in recent years, even though figures such as the first prime minister of Israel were from Ireland (who'd have remembered?). Above the museum (upstairs) is one of the now-unused synagogues; you've notice Barbara (her lavender scarf covering her head, which she also has often worn when in churches and mosques as well, perhaps for slightly different reasons in each) taking a photo to remember the place by. Though the Sho'ah (Holocaust) didn't directly reach Ireland, I find myself feeling sad to stand in the midst of what was once a lively Jewish community and synagogue where that life is now less present.

In the photo to the right, you can see the old castle and church in central Dublin which marks its historical political role, now as capital of the state of Ireland since it became independent from Great Britain in 1920. Nearby is a wonderful library and museum with excellent exhibits from Christian, Islam, Buddhist and Hindu faiths (and a bit from Judaism), including some of the very earliest texts from the early Gospels.

And now we turn to Galway....

While Dublin is on the east coast of Ireland (across the waters from England/Wales), Galway is a much smaller city on the west coast. This is the part of Ireland (the Gaelteact) where the old Irish can still more often be heard. It's a city which was built around fishing farming, but which is now also a popular summer destination for tourists like ourselves (though we're reluctant to play that role). It's an area rich in history, but also a place where beautiful mountains and lakes may be seen, studded with sheep farms and small villages.

We stayed in Galway at a hostel (once known as youth hostels, and though we were evidently the oldest people staying there, it's true that not everyone there arrives with a backpack and is under 20). We realized that the best way to see some of the beauty of the country outside Galway (without a car) was to join a tour, one of whose stops was at the ruins of an old abbey in the photo to the right. Some abbeys like this one fell in conflicts between Catholic and Protestant royalty centuries ago, but their remains are still visited--and surprisingly, still a place where some local people still bury their dead.

In the photo to the left, you can see Barbara listening to our tour guide, standing with others from our group (of about 30). In a cool drizzle, her hair gets charmingly fuzzy.

Our longest stop was at Kylemore abbey and castle--once a boarding school for girls run by nuns, and later owned by a man whose beloved wife's early death inspired him to add to its grandeur. It's in a lovely valley, next to a loch (lake) (see the photo below), open for view, and fortunately well away from the tourist center (snacks, gift shop, etc.).

The views from our bus (and on our occasional photo-op stops) were just amazing--steep hillsides (often with local varieties of sheep), intense greens, rivers and waterfalls and lakes, a huge sky with billowing white clouds--and occasionally hairpin turns which a few times our bus almost failed to make. Each part of Ireland is part of the "real Ireland," I suppose, but I have to admit that this was the Ireland I'd dreamt of and hoped to see.

And now on to Belfast, Northern Ireland--the "capital" of the area, though it's part of Great Britain. As I noted in my earlier post, the six counties of Northern Ireland, with its significant Protestant (often Scotch-Irish) population and with much of Ireland's industrial wealth, remained part of Britain when Ireland itself finally achieved its independence.


Yet the ability of Northern Ireland's Protestant power structure to remain part of Britain (and Britain's desire to keep it) did not address the desires of Catholics in the North who had long felt discriminated against in jobs and politics, many of whom continued to seek independence during the 20th century, and some to seek it through militant, violent means. Our time in Belfast included several opportunities to learn about the conflict, often called "the Troubles," mostly from the Catholic side. We were part of a small walking tour with a man who'd been a volunteer with the more militant wing of the movement for independence, and spent 15 years of his life in prison for it. He's in the photo above, with one of the high "fences" built between Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods (in some areas the gates in the fences are still locked at night, though people may pass through during the day).

He also took us along Falls Road, in one of the main Catholic neighborhoods which has resisted Protestant rule (and what some at least used to consider occupation by the British army). In the photo to the left you can see an area in which a number of murals have been painted, some in commemoration of local Catholics (some combatants, both men and women, but also a number of bystanders, including children) who lost their lives over the years, including ten who fasted to their death in 1980 while in prison. The mural below gives a sense for the Catholic position: their resistance, including violent resistance, is a response to oppression, foreign control which itself has been ultimately enforced by police and army violence as well.

Below is a photo of one of the memorials, listing

those who've died by name.

We also walked through a Catholic cemetery (in the photo to the right) (note the traditional Celtic crosses on some of the graves), where our guide the deaths of some buried there at what Catholics believe were British assassination teams. While a political agreement to settle the Troubles was signed several years ago, many Catholics still desire an accounting for the deaths no one has yet been held responsible.

Part of the concern for many Catholics historically is that British and Protestant control over Ireland in general and Northern Ireland even now to a degree was essentially colonial: most of the land in Ireland was taken for British settlers, the Irish language and history were repressed, Catholics weren't hired for better jobs. Part of the current effort by some Catholics has been one of Irish cultural nationalism rather than (or in addition to) political movements; we saw a school where Irish kids can learn the Irish language (starting at the age of 3), and an Irish cultural center.

In the photo to the right, we see St. Patrick's Cathedral, located in the area where we had our tour. I was in the church alone (I went back another day to see the area again), and it seemed like a peaceful place. I had a lot of questions remaining after our tour was over, one of which was whether something like South Africa's "Truth and Reconciliation" commissions would be possible or helpful in Northern Ireland--and what the role of the respective faiths might be in that, as the conflict has so often been framed as a religious one between Protestants and Catholics (yet without that being its primary cause). I'm not sure what role the Catholic Church has played in the conflict, or even how deeply many Catholics remain active in their church even if Catholic by faith (especially given the fallout from the child-abuse scandals in Ireland in particular). I'm left hoping for the best for the people of the area, who've suffered much over the years, yet humble in my understanding of what may happen in the future. Bruce