My time in Belfast Ireland was spent mostly being a YWAM student where Amalia is working. I had a great time meeting new people. We spent 4 days on a retreat in Bushmills where I got to visit Giant’s Causeway, a natural phenomenon. It’s an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven and eight sides.
Legend has it that the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. One version of the legend tells that Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. In a variation, Fionn fled after seeing Benandonner's great bulk, and asked his wife to disguise him as the baby. In both versions, when Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn.
Belfast was a very interesting city especially with the Amalia working with Reconciliation between the Protestants and the Catholics. The two political groupings in the Northern Ireland (Republican and Loyalist, the former predominantly being Catholic and the latter predominantly Protestant) have a strong tradition of large wall mural painting in their communities, particularly the poorer ones. I saw the most murals on The Falls Road or Shankill (where Amalia lives). These murals are big, something like in Chemainus for you Islanders. They change frequently depending on the political climate but they are definitely something to see. The areas they are in, mostly the poorer ghettos, are very safe despite all the violence that used to go on during The Troubles. In all, over one thousand five hundred people were killed in political violence in the city from 1969 until 2001. Amalia had some pretty crazy stories to tell about what she has learned there. Needless to say, there’s a reason why Belfast has some of the best knee surgeons.
On my last day there, Amalia and I took a bus tour to see some more of Belfast. We toughed out the cool “breeze” on the top level of the double-decker bus. We were shown the sights in the city centre and suburbs including famous murals painted on the ends of terraced houses during 'The Troubles' in the Falls Road area (Catholic side), the Harland and Wolff shipyards where the Titanic was built and Queens University. Belfast is also home of C.S. Lewis, writer of “ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. His house “Little Lea” and a local park, inspired some of his writing.
I will always remember Ireland as the greenest place on earth with the most sheep.
