an EVENTFUL day in Belfast (our second last day of the Ireland trip!)

Today was our full day in Belfast before we set off again tomorrow to return south.

This morning we did a walking tour through the city centre and waterfront, which started at 10:30am outside the City Hall. Our Airbnb is technically in the city, but its was a 25-minute walk away from the centre, so we left at 10am to make it on time.

The town hall was really beautiful, I loved the building so much. The top parts are green and then everything else is this gorgeous light grey stone, with stunning details over the whole thing. It was the only are of Belfast we’d seen so far that was actually half busy, so it was kind of nice to be in a touristy section of the city for a bit.

Our guide’s name was Paul and he was an absolute legend. I’m honestly not going to even try to cover the volume of information and scale of time he covered, all I can say is he’s amazing, and Belfast’s history is crazy and way too complicated for my 3 brain cells to wrap themselves around. I am really interested in it though, I can sense there’ll be a new niche history interest coming up. It was really cool to experience the city through the lens of their conflict, especially because a lot of the shop fronts and streets you would never be able to identify as sites of past terror.

They’ve got this weird thing against, well not really ‘against’, just haven’t come around to it yet I guess, to commemorate the bombings at specific sites. Most of these bomb sites there were multiple casualties, and hundreds of sites throughout the city. If you weren’t doing a walking tour about the past violence in Belfast, you genuinely would have no idea there was virtually a civil war for the better part of 25 years. Which, considering how traumatising that period of time was, and how many people and generations were affected, I mean it shaped the cultural dynamic of the city forever, it’s so bizarre to me there is no trace of it at all. Absolutely nothing. The Troubles, the IRA, the Catholics vs the Protestants, honestly it's the first thing I think of when I think of Belfast, or Northern Ireland at all. It’s so perplexing to me. And reassuringly it was also perplexing to Paul, who explained that simply it’s because they haven’t really been able to hold any specific person or group accountable for each bombing. Most of the killings have never had trials or convictions, and no one can reach a consensus of accountability, mainly because both ‘sides’ committed these crimes, often against civilians regardless of their ‘side’.

We visited many different spots throughout the city, it gave us a great introduction into some of the places which should, but didn’t, know. We got a great recommendation for lunch too, which we walked back to after the tour finished up. It was an awesome recommendation too, although Dad wanted to a pub (shocker) it was actually really hard to find a pub in the centre area that served food at all. We went to the Foundry, which was so tasty, I loved the fish that I ordered, it was very refreshing to have some fresh veggies you know? As much as I’ve been loving the comfy Irish food, sometimes what I need is some lemon fish and broccolini yummo.

This is when the day took a little turn… we had this grand plan to walk our way back through the city, stopping at a couple of places and explore the botanical gardens before heading back to the Airbnb for some chill time before dinner. Unfortunately for Dad he had some stomach problems (join the dots yourself) and let’s just say we needed to make it back to our accommodation with a swiftness. This ended up working ridiculously well because, unbeknownst to us, there were some major demonstrations happening right at the City Hall. As things do, there was some tension and it escalated into quite a bit of conflict. Luckily we were already out of the area, but since we’d seen on the news they were planning on heading down to the Belfast Islamic Centre (we’re staying nearby) we decided it would probably be safer just to stay in the apartment for the rest of the day. I’m not complaining though, a bit of actual rot time is always a good idea. Honestly I don’t know the full extent of the context of what was going on, I’m assuming it had something to do with the recent stabbing in Southport, which was obviously awful. I’ve heard about similar situations in Birmingham too so they’re definitely related.

Tomorrow we head a bit further south and end up around halfway between Belfast and Dublin so that it’s less of a drive to the airport the day after. It’s so crazy to me tomorrow night will be our last night in Ireland! Then Dad ditches me and I’ll officially be having my brat summer woop woop. It feels weird to even think about solo travelling to be honest, I’ve been freaking out a bit thinking that every person I meet from the day after tomorrow onwards will have never met me before, and knows nothing about me. Although it’s obviously scary to think about, it’s also really exciting. Everything I don’t like about who I am now, or what I wish people would see me as, there’s no reason I can’t fix that now. And there’s something very freeing about that.

Heading out of Belfast tomorrow, I’m a bit sad we didn’t see as much of the city as I would’ve liked to, but I loved the parts we did get to explore. Belfast is definitely on my list of places to come back to as soon as I can.

Currently MIA,

Lauren x