The Narth of Arland

Yeah, that's how someone from there would say it. It's funny the things you don't think about before you visit a place, like the fact that Ireland has a whole range of completely different accents. At home people would be hard-pressed to reproduce the difference between an Irish and a Scottish accent.
Anyway, we paid IES 200 Euro flat to take us on a trip to the North, which is decent considering the quality of our accommodation and the fact that we didn't have to worry about logistics. The train ride northward is arguably the most scenic, as it has more vertical topography than do the rides to Galway or Cork. You also go along the coast for a considerable distance. We had the (mis)fortune of sitting across the isle from a smelly old man with a great beard but whose eggs were completely addled. When he realized we were American he wouldn't leave us alone. He went so far as to wake Perry up and demand that he invent a caption for this picture of Obama and Clinton in a newspaper he had. He then went on a long rant about how the economy was collapsing, replete with statistics, most of which were "80%." Roughly 80% of the statistics he quoted were "80%."
As we arrived in Belfast we immediately boarded a bus that took us to the city center, which we should have walked. We disembarked to have lunch at Belfast's Crown Bar. This bar is a famous establishment with lavish Victorian decorations and elaborate woodcarving. We had what I thought was a lovely meal. This meal will be revisited later.
Outside the Crown the group (which contained roughly 40 people) piled in to "black taxis" to take a tour of West Belfast - a sectarian "hot-zone." These ubiquitous black cabs, like the ones found in London, are a sort of alternative bus service for the people of Belfast, most of whom have been historically mistrustful of using common public transport in rough areas. A specific fleet of them acts as a guide service for tourists.

We stopped first at the Shankill Road, a Loyalist stronghold, and got out to take pictures and hear a short bit about Loyalism. I'll put one mural up here, for the rest of them I'll direct you to a link to my Facebook album that has more pictures at the bottom of this post.
Much of the Loyalist graffiti and mural had to do with internal feuding and drug traffic. As Catholics have improved their situation with the thawing of relations, many Protestant communities have been left behind, resulting in economic and community stagnation.
From the Shankill we moved on to the Peace Line, one of many large walls that separate the "Interface areas" of the two communities. These were erected by the British back in the 70s to prevent late-night traffic and the throwing of projectiles back and forth. At the Peace Line we were given a short talk by one of the strangest sounding people I've ever met. As my camera unfortunately lacks sound on its video, I lack an example but some of my friends got one, so I'll insert it here if I can get my hands on a copy.
From the Peace Line thence to the Falls road, a Republican/Catholic area. Some of you may recall my shenanigans walking around alone in the Falls on my previous visit to the North. About the time we entered this area, I realized that something was very wrong in my gastrointestinal command center. Attempting to remain calm while stuffed in a cab with 7 other people, I hoped for the storm to pass. At a small IRA memorial garden that you will not see pictures of unless you look in my previous trip's archive, I executed a perfect ninjavomiting maneuver. Without attracting the attention of the 40+ onlookers, the speaker, or the cluster of chatting cab drivers, I managed to empty the entire contents of my stomach onto the sidewalk, and then proceed as if nothing had happened. Passers-by apparently treated the cesspool of ralph that had not been there before as a glitch in the Matrix.
Our tour ended with some Republican murals on the Falls that you have all probably seen on my other reports. We almost died at the Bobby Sands mural because Gabe saw a little kid with a mohawk and proceeded to take pictures of him while his disgruntled father leered on.
We boarded the bus again for our journey to Portrush, which by the way is nowhere near Belfast. Many dark sorceries and evil machinations were done inside the tiny lavatory of that bus as it bumped along. The drive, most of it along the coast, was beautiful, although I slept through most of it because my stomach still needed to be settled. 2-odd hours later we arrived in Portrush, which is on the northern coast of County Antrim, near the Giant's Causeway.
Our Ramada was quite a nice hotel, and I was put in a room with Danny. Everyone went to a small pizza parlor for supper, and was told by surly hotel staff that food was not allowed to be brought in to the hotel "for health and safety reasons." Handles of liquor, however, were not so easy for them to spot. The showers in the hotel were of such quality that they were used recreationally by our group - I and many others took multiple showers a day, many of them longer than 20 minutes.
The first night we went to a local pub/pool-hall called Rogue's. Everyone got housed and when we left with two friendly locals, that is, 20 of us, we were convinced to go over to their apartment. When we passed our hotel I made a conservative choice to retire, which proved the right choice when the next morning I discovered that my friends had been made to walk for 30 minutes to get there. In the morning we boarded the bus and went to nearby Bushmills to visit the Bushmills whiskey distillery. It is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in Ireland. While the Jameson Distillery in Dublin is a good experience with a creative tasting session at the end, Bushmills really shows you how whiskey is made. We were allowed access to the actual mash vats, distillers, and bottling facilities. All of these rooms had very pungent smells and oppressive temperatures, but the sheds where the barrels are kept for aging smelled amazing - like sweet apples mixed with wood. It was interesting to learn how whiskey is blended by using different kinds of wood in the casks, sometimes changing several times over a period of years. After having a nice glass of whiskey to start off the morning, we got back on the bus to go to the Giant's Causeway.
By this time in the day the wind was ramping up and there was a light rain in the air. The Causeway sits on a small peninsula on the northern coast of Northern Ireland, not far from Scotland. We had a quick lunch at a pub near the visitor's center and went in for a small video. Always prepared, I had my rainpants ready to rock. Some members of the group looked disparagingly at my attire...how sorry they would be when we descended the rocky slope to the seashore.
I've done a lot of backpacking in my time, and I've experienced wind in the Adirondacks and places like Icewater Springs that gusted between 50 and 70mph. I can state categorically that the gusts at the Causeway were the most intense I've ever felt, and must have been well in excess in 70mph. At times it was basically impossible to walk against the wind, and at times I was literally forced to take steps in a specific direction because the wind was blowing me along the ground. Really, I'm glad it was that intense. It added to the severity and harshness of the environment and enhanced the richness of the experience.
The Giant's Causeway is basically a peninsula of black, hexagonal, basalt rock cylinders that were formed millions of years ago by volcanic rock cooling and cracking in geometric patterns. For further info on the Causeway, check out the captions of the facebook album - I go into more detail. We ventured as far out on the Causeway as we dared - high winds and monster waves made the area extremely hazardous, and yes people die there every year. Needless to say, I did a lot of yelling and whooping, usually involving the word "extreme."
We walked along the shore of the bight - yes, "bight," a small bay bordered by two promontories or headlands. Richard Spencer the geography major took issue with my initial naming of it as a "lagoon," as it lacked a sandbar at its mouth, as is his prerogative. At the opposite end of the bight is another exposed section of columns in the cliff face, known as the "Giant's Organ"
This picture looks over the top of the Causeway columns across the bight to the opposite headland. Once on the other side, we took a steep trail that switch-backed up the side of the ridge, and emerging on top, walked along the edge overlooking the Causeway back to the green pastures and the visitor's center overhead. Gabe and I were the last back, having been too busy punching sheep to return punctually.
When we returned to Portrush, we had a break which virtually everyone used to squeeze in an additional shower (in fairness, a salty film covered everyone's face from the sea-spray), and nap. The Hobbit on audiobook was perfect for knocking me out. After our break, we were scheduled to have a group supper at a nearby restaurant. Once we arrived, it quickly became apparent that groups of 40 people were not suited for this particular establishment. Though the food was of great quality, table service was not normal and the staff were too few to handle our party. Ordering took no less than an hour. After two and a half more hours had elapsed, I enjoyed a nice steak dinner. At least we had a chance to work up an appetite.
I might add that all during dinner and break time, Chris was wrapped around the toilet hurling up his soul. Something, we're still not sure what, possessed his innards of a deathly affliction. He apparently was at that unhappy stage of human existence where he was chugging water strictly to have something to throw up. We gave Chris our pity, and prepared to go back to the pub.
At the pub we staked out the snooker table. I'm not even sure if what we were playing was snooker, but I know that the balls were only two colors and the 8-ball, and they were smaller than pool balls. Gabe and I easily dispatched two hood-rats, but were eventually ousted from the table by a spider-monkeyesque younger man and his bonny lass. At least I got a kiss on the cheek out of it. There was a live band in the pub this night, consisting of two guitar-wielding men with a loop machine and pints of lager. They were playing some pretty stock Rolling Stones type tunes, then they realized that 70% of their audience were Americans. They hastily rolled out Sweet Home Alabama, which I took full boisterous ownership of in my inebriated state. The closing number was a rendition of Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner from Woodstock. An opportunist, to be sure.
As a brief caveat, I have made it my personal mission to find a live musician on this continent who can play me some Styx. I'm interested for a number of reasons - to see people's reactions when I request Styx, to see their attempt at playing Styx, and also simply to hear Styx because I like them. These gentlemen had no Styx in their repertoire...I doubt sincerely they had the vocal capability to manage, though I would have loved to witness the attempt. Their reaction was a mixture of apology and confusion. Look for new chapters to come; the saga continues...
On the final day of our journey we visited Dunluce Castle on our way out of Portrush. Dunluce is a cluster of ruined buildings that lie on a cliff that juts out into the ocean, separated from the mainland by a narrow rocky bridge. It was a prehistoric hillfort in a bygone age, a Norman palisade from the 11th century on, and the residence of the O'Donnells - Scots, from the 15th century on. The 17th century saw the castle's heyday as well as its collapse - literally.
Having been impressively expanded and fortified and lavishly furnished and decorated, part of the kitchen collapsed into the ocean in the mid 17th century, taking kitchen staff with it. As nice as the castle must have been, it's in a rough place - the sea and wind constantly batter the cliff face that it rests on, and it must have taken the brunt of gales that blow in off the ocean.
From Dunluce we cut through the center of Northern Ireland through Ballymena straight to Belfast, rather than driving along the coast as we had on our way to Portrush. We had to kill time eating bad sandwiches in the train station for a few hours, but finally boarded the train back to Dublin. As luck would have it, we sat next to a 7-man stag party, who drank several large flagons of spirits and whose laughter increased in volume steadily as we steamed southward. It was nice to get off the train back in Dublin and start using Euros again.



Check out the rest of the photos I took on this facebook album.