Disclaimer! In the following Northern Irish travelogue, little attempt has been made to render the dialogue of the real life Irish characters in an authentic Irish brogue. As you’ll see, everyone talks in pretty much the same voice. This is an interesting literary technique called shitty writing.
Derry
“Where haven’t you been?” the customs agent jokes.
“Africa, Australia, South Am-”
“Welcome to Derry,” he cuts me off.
Simon greets us and we hop on a bus to…
Belfast
“I was almost beaten up outside of this pub,” Simon relays cheerfully. He has a lot of stories like this. “Just the top bit of my football shirt was showing. Your man asked if I was a Rangers fan, and had me pinned up against the wall. I had to pull my jumper up to show him it was Derry City. We had a good laugh.”
~
After seeing some of the areas of greatest conflict during the Troubles, on the Belfast city bus tour, we pass a building called The Kremlin with a statue of Lenin out front.
“This is the headquarters of the Northern Irish Communist Party,” announces the tour guide.
People ready their cameras to photograph yet another piece of the city’s political controversy.
“Nah, only joking. It’s a gay bar.”
~
It’s always an enormous benefit to know someone local when traveling. Otherwise we never would have thought to tour the campus of Queen’s University and its Botanic Gardens. It’s just a bunch of flowers and plants, right? Yes, it is. But we are reminded how lovely flowers and plants can be, arranged inside a beautiful white greenhouse. It’s a warm quiet place with a lot of sunlight, while it’s damp and cold outside.
The Holylands are so named for the streets in the area (Jerusalem Street, Palestine Street, Damascus Street, Carmel Street and Cairo Street). We’re standing on Palestine Street, locked out of Simon’s sister’s apartment. She’s in Strabane, letting us stay in her empty place for the week. Earlier, I left the key inside a room which locked. We left the apartment, which locked behind us, to pick up another key.
This key doesn’t work. The sun goes down. We look suspicious, fiddling with the key and doorknob in the dark. Eventually we make it to Spar, a British convenience store chain. We roam the aisles for several minutes, looking for something to jimmy open a lock. Finally, Simon talks to the security guy (this convenience store has a bouncer) about our problem. He’s fairly young, bald and very friendly, but looks like he would happily break our fingers if we were shoplifters.
“Put the key in all the way and then pull it out just about a millimeter. Then turn. Don’t force it. It’s got to line up just right to activate the springs.”
It works!
Strabane
“Out the front door is Northern Ireland, but come here, look,” Simon leads us to the back patio. “That’s the Republic of Ireland right there.”
Strabane was once the most bombed town in Europe per capita.
~
At dinner Simon’s father cheerfully makes conversation. I can’t understand any of it. But I enjoy the effusive hospitality and heaping piles of mashed potatoes and gravy, roast beef and boiled vegetables. Immediately after dinner we relax on the couch, and Simon’s mother brings us sandwiches and potato chips. We watch soccer and Coronation Street and wash the extra food down with a few cans of Guinness. I always put on a bit of weight during the holidays, but here my body completely transforms.
Later it’s out on the town for a pub crawl, if three pubs is sufficient to count as a crawl. We get a lot of attention.
“Why the hell are you in Strabane?”
Derry
We’re back in Derry, on the same walking tour that Will Ferrell and Bill Clinton have taken, but it’s just the three of us and our witty guide.
The historic divisions in Derry are quite stark and obvious. There’s a steep hill, at the bottom of which are murals dedicated to heroes (or troublemakers, depending on your point of view) and innocent victims in the Catholic side of the struggle. Our guide tells us that at the top of the hill, there’s a path on which the rich Protestants would stroll, dolled up in their dandiest attire. The poor Catholics at the bottom of the hill would look up at these “cats” on this “catwalk” hence of the origin of the word. The etymology seems doubtful, but it’s a good story.
Later we duck into a small pub in town that’s owned by one of Simon’s aunts. Simon knows people everywhere. He also has a friend who owns a pub in the Republic of Ireland, near the border with the north. Now that the border between the two is open his business has suffered. Why pay five euros for a pint when you can pay half that a few miles north?
Dunluce Castle
Something like 400 years ago, the Earl of Antrim and his London wife were enjoying a meal. She detested the continual lapping of the waves. As the Earl chewed on his leg of lamb or roast boar or something, and gulped his hearty stein of ale or sipped his glass of Scotch, he belched rudely or smirked mischievously, or maybe farted meekly. Then, in which must have been all of a sudden, nearly the entire kitchen and all but one of its staff fell into the sea. The one servant who survived had been standing in just the right corner, admiring its cornerness, as the charming Irish coast swallowed his friends. It didn’t belch.
We read a version of this story on a sign as we frolicked around the ruins of the medieval Irish fortress. At least some of the story must’ve been true. I know there was no kitchen, because I tried to fix a sandwich and fell right into the sea.
Matthew picked up a handful of stones and hurled them one at a time out the open window toward the sea. Simon and I followed.
Suddenly the ground began to give way.
…
DRAMATIC PAUSE
Okay, I’m lying. Nothing like that happened. We just had a little stone throwing contest on a fairly cold, sunny, windy winter day. From the inside, the castle was a grand pile of ruins in which to play explorer or raiding party.
Giant’s Causeway
“Matthew can take us to Giant’s Causeway tomorrow,” Simon tells us.
“Giant’s Causeway doesn’t exist,” Matthew replies. This is some kind of joke I don’t completely understand. But I smile.
The drive up north is impossibly green. Not the bright green of the tropics, but a deep, pervasive green, in all directions. It’s cold and damp in the middle of January. We stop briefly and pick up driftwood on a beach. We see a Sprite vending machine at the bottom of a small cliff. Drunk bored kids. This small bit of vandalism doesn’t mar the bucolic surroundings, but rather adds a flourish. We stop at the tourist center and Matthew is amused by a photo book entitled Beautiful Sheep.
It’s easy to see how Giant’s Causeway inspired legends of giants. It looks man-made, and subsequently hit by air raids. The geological processes which I don’t entirely understand have created neat columns and perfect pentagons and hexagons, some bits smooth and others jagged.
We climb among the ruins of Finn McCool’s bridge and make our way up and along the cliffs by the sea. This is the kind of nature which people escape to in order to let go their worries.
And so, feeling free and facing the wild sea, I urinate off a cliff with the wind blowing sideways.
More photos here.
