Heathrow/Ireland

I am in Heathrow airport, waiting for the Lufthansa desk to open so that I can check in for my flight. It is 23:31 right now, so that will be in t-minus five hours. Since getting back to Hatfield, I have been busy with school stuff and preparing to return to OU, so I haven't had much chance to write about last week's trip.

The first stop was Belfast. I only stayed one night there, but it is not a big town, and I got to see pretty much everything I wanted to. I learned a lot about Irish history in the Ulster Museum, from St. Patrick all the way up to 'the Troubles' of the last few decades. Speaking of which, Belfast still bears the scars of the sectarian violence from about 1968 until just a couple of years ago. You can walk around and see memorials for people who died (which always include the religion of either the victims or their killers) and murals which are either Protestant and pro-English or Catholic and republican, depending on which part of town you are in. I climbed Cave Hill, up past Belfast Castle. The castle itself is not terribly impressive- they mostly use it for weddings and stuff. But the view from the hilltop is incredible. I could see Scotland, and I was told that on a clear day you spot Wales as well.

Dublin was also very cool. I walked past the house from James Joyce's short story The Dead on my way to the Guinness Storehouse. I saw Strongbow's tomb in Christ Church Cathedral, then the next day I saw this picture of his marriage to Aoife (the daughter of the king of Leinster) in the National Art Gallery. I also really liked just wandering around the city: Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green, and Irish-language street signs.