Ireland Reflections 2020–Last Day!

For our last day on the trip, we headed for Stormont – home to the Northern Ireland Assembly for our morning excursion.group photo on the steps of Stormont

As Morgan Henson noted, “the Parliament building in Belfast was a truly interesting experience. After going through what some might call a gauntlet of stories about The Troubles all week, we finally arrived at the seat of the Northern Ireland government. After hearing about The Troubles, and the resulting fallout, I was curious to see what the governing body would look like, how it would function. While I will admit there were some interesting aspects, the thing I most enjoyed was sitting in the chamber room and seeing how votes get passed.” 2L Jazmin  Ramirez added she too “found it fascinating to be able to sit in the room where a lot of important decisions are made.”  (To get us mirroring parliamentary debate, our guide had us debate whether or not the hot dog is a sandwich….discuss!)photo of students sitting in parliament chambers

Following the tour and our own lively debate, we grabbed cups of tea and headed to meet with Doug Beattie, an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). A common feeling at this juncture of the trip was beautifully verbalized by Oliva Robinson, “when thinking of the political conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland, the opponents are often characterized as the “Catholics” and the “Protestants.” As I learned the foundations of the conflict in Comparative Conflict Resolution, I found myself, as someone not raised under a religion, wondering how a religious divide could be the catalyst of such tragic events. As our dive into and my understanding of the conflict deepened, it became clear that these opponents are also referred to as the “Republicans” and the “Loyalists,” respectively, amongst many other terms used to describe these groups. These varying terms left me asking what role religious affiliation still has within the conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

This question was answered by Doug Beattie. Doug was not raised particularly religious and was happy to tell us about his experience as a UUP MLA  without religious affiliation. “While he discussed the divisions in Northern Ireland as religious, he made it a point to bring up that many of the divisions are based along political fault lines; such lines are between the two major parties in the North, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a conservative, unionist, majority Protestant party, and Sinn Fein, a more liberal, nationalist/republican, majority Catholic party.” 3L Dan Kinderman recalled.

For Robinson, “this talk with Doug brought the conflict to its modern-day point, allowing us to see how the conflict has and has not changed since its beginnings. While the (perhaps, overly simplified) premise of whether the Northern Ireland should be united with the Republic of Ireland or stay a part of the United Kingdom remains the same, the terminology based on religious affiliation does not necessarily seem to coincide with its political counterpart the way it once did.”Picture in the main hall with legislator Doug Beattiephoto of students with legislator Doug Beattie

Following many group pictures and some solo shots outside the magnificent building, our afternoon concluded with a visit to Belfast’s perhaps most famous export – The Titanic. During the 20th Century, Belfast was a hub for shipbuilding. “The Titanic was built at Harland and Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast beginning in 1909. At the time, Harland and Wolff employed 15,000 Irish workers” Michelle Ziegler contextualized. She added, the “Titanic left Belfast on April 2, 1912 on her maiden voyage. Titanic traveled to Southampton, England; Cherbourg, France; and finally Queenstown, Ireland before embarking for her destination, New York on April 11, 1912.”

As Kelsey McCarthy noted, “for many of us, when we think of the Titanic, we think of the movies that have taken over Hollywood. Walking through the Titanic museum, I found myself thinking more critically about the ship itself, the events that led to its sinking, and most importantly, about the people that were on the ship.” For McCarthy “one of the most striking parts of the museum was the exhibit where the Titanic’s distress calls to the Carpathia, becoming more and more frantic, were laid out on the walls.”photo of students outside the Titanic Museum

(Since I had been to the museum several times before and my RA Morgan was more interested in escape rooms–we had fun at Escape Room Belfast which gave us both a fun break.  And, btw, we did escape under an hour!)Photo of Prof Andrea Scheneider and RA Morgan

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Ireland Reflections 2020–Back to Belfast

A speaker at the Irish Language Center in BelfastAfter some longer days of travel, the group took a welcomed short trip to Cultúrlann – the Irish Language Center – in Belfast. For 3L Margaret Spring, this “was one of the most rewarding experiences of our trip.” She recalled the visit “reminded me that no matter how much a culture tries to be erased, it will not and cannot happen.”

Nim Nannan accounted “Culturlann is a great representation of the Irish’s determination to preserve and promote their language and culture. When a people are colonized, one of the first things the colonizers do is restrict the colonized sense of culture and identity to prevent the promulgation of both in future generations as to quickly assimilate them into their own. The founders of Culturlann formed the community center in direct opposition of this agenda by the British government.” She added, “the founders started both Irish language schools and a community center without government support and both continued to flourish as future generations took up the cause.”

After having the opportunity to explore the center and speak with current Culturlann director – and product of the Irish language school – Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, the group piled into one of the classrooms to meet with first with two former IRA combatants who were now involved in both local politics and peacebuilding.

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Ireland Reflections 2020 — Border Tours & Fermanagh

While Tuesday gave us a pretty clear view of the Troubles from the perspective of the Catholic community, Wednesday was the opposite and brought us face to face with the pain of the Protestants in Northern Ireland.

A quick two-hour bus ride out of Belfast led us to the office of the South East Fermanagh Foundation (“SEFF”) for our first stop of our Fermanagh day. There we were greeted with warm biscuits, cups of tea and the Director of SEFF, Kenny Donaldson, and his fellow staff members.SEFF was formed in 1998 to help support innocent victims and survivors of the Troubles in South East Fermanagh. Bridget Smith noted, “The messaging of SEFF was clear:  ‘Terrorism knows no borders.’”  As Brighton Tropha said, “Kenny Donaldson informed the group about all of the services that SEFF offers to victims and survivors of the Troubles, including counseling, complementary therapies, as well as community outreach and advocacy provided by the Advocacy for Innocent Victims project.” She added, “The most moving part of Mr. Donaldson’s presentation was when he turned the group’s attention to all of the quilts lining the walls of the room. The quilts each represented a different memorial message, but each were made up of dozens of hand embroidered patches – representing innocent terror victims or terror attacks resulting in the loss of innocent lives – bringing together victims under a banner of innocence.”  The quilts (shown above and below) were quite amazing.

It was during our time with Kenny that we also had the opportunity to hear from other individuals who are members of SEFF, and one that stuck out for most of the group and in particular 2L Michael Becker, was a man named Ernie. Becker recalls, “Ernie told us about his experiences during The Troubles and centered it around one specific story that changed his life forever. As a result of a bomb attack on the school bus that Ernie used to drive children in his neighborhood to school every day, Ernie’s son took his own life. Ernie told us about how he had taught his son how to drive the bus once he was old enough, how his son would help him out driving the bus and with the kids, and how that morning his son started up the bus and did the daily check. Ernie’s son blamed himself for what happened that day, for not seeing the bomb under the bus, for not being able to save the children from an unthinkable harm.” Michael reflected, “What Ernie shared with us that day showed me that the death toll of The Troubles has not stopped counting, and without groups like SEFF who provide a platform for people to discuss the tragedies they have endured, that number will continue to rise with no end in sight.”Ernie with student Bridget Smith

The hardest part of the day was after lunch when we hopped back on the bus for a “tour” of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.  The roads meandered back and forth between the two as we crossed the border multiple times within the hour (showing us also how impossible Brexit with a hard border could be).  Our guide for this part of the tour told us the history of every attack that happened in this area throughout the Troubles and the combination of the description of the horrible attacks, the matter-of-fact tone of the explanation (here is where the farmer x was attacked; here is where this bombing took place; here is where this body was dumped etc), and the motion of the stop-and-start bus made for a pretty unpleasant, if important, experience.  Below is a picture of one of the memorials to terror victims at a church in the area.

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