Wandering about the countryside

This past weekend we spent traveling out, visiting some of the sights of Northern Ireland. Before we took off, though, we did have some excitement here in town that we weren't expecting. We were at a bar downtown when a fight broke out about five feet from us. We couldn't see much, but we heard glass break, and one of the security guards came back from escorting the offenders out with blood all down the front of his shirt. The major event, though, was when we were walking back to the flats. We came across the tail end of a fight that had broken out on the main street between some of the college-aged kids. The cops were apparently waiting just around the corner for it to start, and broke it up immediately, at which point the kids turned on the cops. Talking to one of the cops afterwards, he explained that this was the real goal of it. They would start a fight, the cops would come in to break it up, and then they would all turn on the cops. Most of the people here have grown up with the police (being entirely protestant) being the enemy, and so really don't have any respect for them. Events like this are so common (pretty much every weekend night) that the police force has a special unit trained to deal with exactly this kind of thing. The festivities ended earlier than usual when someone took a blow to the head and was knocked out cold. They called in an ambulance and loaded the rest of the group up into the back of the police cars (which, by the way, look more like tanks. They're fully armored to protect against thrown rocks).

The rest of the weekend was much more light hearted. On Saturday we went out to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope bridge, a bridge put up each year to an island just off the coast that the locals use for fishing. After hanging out around there for a while we moved on to the Giant's Causeway, a really cool natural rock formation where the basalt, pushed up from ancient volcano flows, forms whole fields of perfectly interconnecting hexagon pillars. You can go out and climb around on them, right along the edge of the shore. Our last stop was at the ruins of Dunluce Castle. The castle is situated right at the edge of a cliff which, sometime in the 1700s I think, proved to be its undoing when, in the middle of a party, the kitchen fell off the cliff into the waters below. We got to walk around inside the ruins, and then went down to the cave under the castle that opens out to the water. On the way back we stopped at Magilligan's Point, an overlook at the top of the hill from which you could see the countryside for miles around. The wind was the strongest I have ever encountered, and came close to knocking several of the smaller girls in our group off of their feet. The countryside out here in incredibly beautiful, and just as lush and green as all of the travel brochures say. There are also sheep everywhere. I'm convinced that I have seen more sheep than people, and I'm living in a major city.

Sunday we went over to County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. We stopped at a shrine to St. Patrick and the Virgin Mary that was on the side of the road. The locals had festooned the statues with small offerings and tokens, hoping to receive blessings in return. The scene struck me as familiar, but it wasn't until later that I realized why. The shrine here was almost identical to the countless Shinto shrines that I saw while I was in Japan. It was the same set up, with a small statue or Tori gate off the side of the road, and a variety of small tokens and knick-knacks left in offering. We then moved on to the Northernmost coastline of Ireland, and wandered around the cliffs along the edge of the water. I got climbing in around the rocks at the edge of the coast, which was a lot of fun for me, and apparently very entertaining for those who stayed up on the hill and watched. We had lunch there on the cliffs and then moved on to a nearby beach, where we waded and admired our surroundings. Our final visit was to the Gianan of Aileach, a two thousand year old ringfort. The entrance was fenced off for construction work (they're putting in some supports to keep the structure upright), but the old stone wall proved perfect for foot and handholds, so it didn't take us long to get inside. Inside the fort you could go up to the walkway along the top of the walls, as well as crawl into the small passages within the walls.

Today's excursion was over to Belfast, where we took a bus tour of all of the political murals that have been put up over the past decade. Most were rather intimidating, as they depicted images of paramilitary troops with their guns, and symbols of the ongoing war. A few of the newest ones were geared a little more at peace, but those were few. The city itself was beautiful, with lots of old architecture in the pubs and churches (probably the two most common types of buildings here in Northern Ireland). On the way back we stopped at a set of stone circles that were estimated to have been put up around 2000 BC. As we have no recorded history of that time, it's a mystery as to why these stones were put there. They are very precise, though, marking out various patterns and designs. Some theories are that they were used to deep track of celestial events and druidic ceremonies. Many of the old Celtic myths warn people against stepping into them, as they are said to be gateways into the world of the Tuatha de Danaan, the Fairy folk (the side that I mentioned earlier). Professor Flack commented that he had to see anyone disappear into one, but that there's a first time for everything.

The rest of the evening has been pretty laid back. I go back for my second day at the primary school tomorrow, so I'll post soon about how that's going. Until then...