Being In Belfast

 I must ‘fess up to wishing that the conference venue was to be held in Dublin, rather than in Belfast – how wrong can you be?  On our late afternoon arrival, we decided to find the venue and register. As we strolled over, we marvelled at the stunning architecture, the lovely River Lagan and became victims of a Belfast deluge! My first purchase was a sturdy umbrella!                                                     

Not impressed that we - two! - could not be accommodated for dinner at the hotel as they ‘had a group in‘, we trudged out  in what was now a fine drizzle in search of food. And we lucked out: some succulent scallops and a chilled Chardonnay made my day! 😊

 On Wednesday we attended some interesting conference sessions as well as some not so interesting ones so we decided to go for full-on tourism! Our first ….er….. port of call was the Titanic Experience. Now I had been fortunate to visit the touring Titanic The Exhibition in Victoria, British Columbia some years ago – a really, really must-see! It was magnificent: we were each assigned the ticket and persona of an actual passenger and actors dressed as crew members led us through the ship facsimile. One actually ‘chased’ me out of the first class restaurant (I was spellbound by the china, crystal and crockery replicas of the originals set on the dinner tables) since I was travelling steerage! We suddenly felt the jolt of the collision with the iceberg. An even more ‘moving’ experience was at the final section which housed the passenger lists of both survivors and victims; this we read to the background accompaniment of a bagpipe lament.  My assigned passenger had been a widow, on her way to America to make a new life for her children, left behind in Belfast. When I learned she had drowned, I wept.                                                          

In Belfast. The focus was, understandably, on the building of the ship and the first sea trials she made there. The exhibition building is a noble ship shape, but the prow was crying out for an outside balcony where dramatic couple-selfies could be taken!                                                               

Top of my list was the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour and magically the sun shone warm on us for its open-top entirety. Can you see us both in this picture?  Our guide was informative and impartial.                                                            

 It was saddening to go down the Falls Road, murals outlining characters and victims of what are euphemistically referred to as The Troubles.                                                                 

We viewed the wall, sometimes referred to as The Peace Wall, dividing the Catholic and Protestant areas as we then drove down the Shankhill Road.

 I’ve been to the Green Line in Cyprus, the UN buffer zone separating The Republic of Cyprus with the Turkish occupied area in the north. I’ve been driven through a sentry gate in the UN- court-deemed-illegal West Bank Barrier segregating Palestine from the Israeli-controlled area.

 It was heart-breaking to see both and to see how they affect the lives of so many. Yet, I think that witnessing the Belfast boundary moved me most as it seemed so close to home.