The end is near.

This trip is coming to a close very soon! Today was our last day of activities. We toured the city walls of Derry and met the Lord Mayor. He was a very nice and personable guys who loves Elvis and seems very passionate about maintaining the peace in the city. Tomorrow we have our final exams and presentations and then we're finished! We're having a nice group dinner at the Tower Hotel tomorrow and going to Dublin the next day. We'll spend the afternoon in Dublin on Friday on our own and then flight home the next morning! I'm off to finish studying!

A very interesting day.

This morning we met John Hume. It was very brief because he had other appointments today and also because he is suffering from a disease much like Alzheimer's, so he had a difficult time communicating. Nevertheless he said some very interesting things. I wrote down a few quotes from him today that I really liked. Here is one:

"The world is becoming a smaller place so our ability to shape the world is becoming greater."

After that we had a lecture by INCORE, which is the International Center of Excellence for the study of Peace and Conflict at the University of Ulster-Magee. After that we visited the civil rights museum or the "Free Derry Museum" as it is called. It is so interesting to see how the Catholics modeled their civil rights movement after the one in America. It was a fascinating museum and some of it was very sad. Our last thing today was visiting the Bogside Artists of Northern Ireland who painted a most of the murals in Derry. One of the artists gave us a tour and it was one of the most interesting things we've done. Here is a link to a picture of the one of the murals called Bernadette (named after Bernadette Devlin): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/3001924131_877d06dc15.jpg?v=0

Okay now I'm off to work on my project and study for my exam tomorrow!

Mickey Dee's is my home in Derry.

I'm in McDonald's again browsing the web and researching for my presentation which is on the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. It's actually really fascinating, as are most things I have learned here. Tomorrow we get to meet John Hume which I am really excited about. He is suffering from a disease much like Alzheimer's so he won't be giving us a lecture but we get to meet him and talk to him for a while. It's going to be so cool! We walked around Derry a bit today and it's a cute little town... but it's also the home of Bloody Sunday so I guess cute may not be the most appropriate word for it.

Want to look up some of the stuff I'm learning about/researching about? (You know you do!) Google The Troubles, Bloody Sunday, NICRA, John Hume, or Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. You'll find some interesting stuff, I promise.

Okay that's all for now! I don't know if I'm going to have internet much from now until Wednesday so I wanted to give a quick update. I'll leave you with a quote from Bernadette Devlin McAlisky: "One American said that the most interesting thing about Holy Ireland was that its people hate each other in the name of Jesus Christ. And they do!"

So we arrived in Derry (or Londonderry, depending on who you're talking to) about two hours ago. We're staying in a big house in the middle of St. Colomb's park, appropriately named St. Colomb's Park House. It's a center for peace and conflict resolution and they are letting us stay there because we are here studying race, religion, and conflict. The house and the park are pretty but kind of in the middle of nowhere in this tiny town so we feel a bit isolated. Also, there is no internet access in the house so we had to take a taxi over to a McDonald's to use their free WiFi. Because of this, I probably won't be able to update the blog that much but I'll do my best!

We have a few interesting things planned out for the next couple of days such as a meeting with John Hume and possibly the mayor of Derry. All day Thursday is reserved for our final exams and presentations and then Friday we are heading back to Dublin and flying home on Saturday morning!

Wow, the past few days have been so amazing!! On Thursday we went to shipyard that the Titanic was built. It's not a shipbuilding port anymore but they still have the pit in which the the Titanic was built and now they are working on putting up a massive living/shopping/leisure center there that they are calling the Titanic Quarter. We met with one of the main guys behind the project and learned about his vision for the place. It was really interesting to see how the developers are trying to combine profit and growth with the dealing with leftover tensions from the conflict. That night we went to the Irish Culture Center here in Belfast and ate some traditonal Irish food, heard a live Irish band play some tradtional Gaelic songs, and then we got to do some Irish dancing! After that we went to a pub and finished off our night of Irish culture with a few Guinnesses. :) It was probably the most fun night we've had so far. Then yesterday we went to up the North Antrim Coast to see some amazing sites such as the Ropebridge and the Giant's Causeway. I have honestly never seen such beautiful places in my life. I was in awe the whole day. Today has been a free day and I've been packing on working on some schoolwork. Tonight we're going to the Belfast Wheel which is a huge ferris wheel that gives us a view of the whole city. We're going to Derry tomorrow and I'm going to be sad to leave Belfast but I'm sure our last week here will have more awesome things in store!

Today we toured the suburbs of Belfast. The Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods are segregated and divided by "peace walls" that are open during the day but shut every night at 10 pm. We signed the peace wall that divided Shankhill (Protestant neighborhood) and the Falls (Catholic neighborhood) and looked at all the murals inside each one. We then went to a Catholic cemetery and we were given a tour by a man who was a former member of the IRA. It was raining and cold and one of the most sober experiences I've had here. Afterward I sat in at coffee shop in the city centre reflecting, and I ended up writing this poem.


The Sun Comes Up Over Belfast

The sun comes up over Belfast,
and the rain falls on green hills
and runs down the streets
of Shankhill and the Falls.

Sheets of wet,
thunder pours out of the clouds
and my leather boots
are soaked all the way through.

I stand in a graveyard of volunteers,
men who died for their own truth,
under a sky that turns from blue to grey,
and a mountain that turns from green to black.

In a walled city, a divided land,
a man tells me of his own truth,
a holy and murderous song,
that although has quieted,
will never be completely silent.

He’s simple man, standing in the graveyard
of his comrades, of his friends, his brothers.
Beside the Crucifix and the Virgin Mary,
he speaks of the freedom and unity that he killed for.
That they died for.

Between murals and peace walls,
friends by day are enemies at night.
No Legislation, segregation, nor integration,
not even a few pints of Guinness in the city centre,
can make this country neutral ground.

beautiful day...

Today we toured Queens and had a very interesting lecture from a sociology professor at Queens on the development of urban space in Belfast and it's impact on various groups- Catholics, Protestants, women, immigrants, etc. It was very interesting. Then we went shopping, saw an a film called Two Lovers at the Queens Film Theater, and ate Italian for dinner. It was a simple and beautiful day. I really love the group of people on this trip and am really glad that we all get along so well.

We have an early lecture at Queens tomorrow so this is it for the night. I'm sending my love to all you people back home that I miss dearly!