The Emerald Green and Occasionally Orange Isle

Northern Ireland and Ireland

In this episode, Ryan…

-Observes the North Irish peace process in action

-Gets storm-stayed in an abandoned sod lightkeeper’s hut in the Aran Islands

-Actually presents at the conference which was the original purpose of his whole visit to Europe in the first place

Northern Ireland (aka British Empire Occupied Ireland or the Loyal Patriotic Land of Ulster)

When I first arrived in Ireland, in Belfast which being part of the UK still uses the pound, I asked the bus driver, how much for the ticket, to which he responded “One Pound” but in a thick Irish accent whereby the “oun” sounds more like “ine,” so its more “One Pind” or as I heard it “One Pint.” Now, you know you must be in Ireland, if “one pint” is considered common currency, and one can get a ride anywhere in the city simply by supplying his bus driver with a glass of the finest.

Ireland itself is a beautiful landmass, and the name “Emerald Isle” is appropriate as it does maintain a steady yet pleasant hue of green throughout the entire island. The flipside of this is it rains a lot, and I do mean A LOT. On any given day—or any given hour—you could find yourself “damp around the edges.” In other places known for their rain, I like to joke that it only rains if you forget your umbrella, therefore carrying your umbrella is an effective means of preventing unwanted precipitation as the natural forces that be always enjoy a good mocking of people who overplan for every contingency and have to walk around all day carrying a useless umbrella. In Ireland, its almost if they just say, “Ah, I can’t take it anymore, I gotta go” and the rain comes down whether you’ve forgotten your umbrella or not.

So once in Belfast, I decided to stop being the tourist for a while and prepare for this conference, which ostensibly was the reason for my being in Europe in the first place. So I looked over my powerpoint for a minute or two and then went out for a coffee at “Clements” a coffee-shop chain in Northern Ireland—whose attraction for me should be office—which kinda sells itself as a classy Starbucks with a slogan “We’re religious about coffee” and an emblem of a coffee cup with wings and halo. I’m not sure if this is a irreverent reference to the religious tension in the region or not. Nevertheless, they have good Irish Cream Steamers.

Actually as it turns out, a great deal of my ancestors are from Belfast on my father’s side (ie the Clement side). The other family names on my tree from Belfast, Paisley and Dixon, are still apparently fairly common in the region, and I learned from a Black Cab taxi driver—who was almost certainly a Catholic—that a distant relative of mine, Reverend Paisley, is currently the most powerful man in Northern Ireland and the leader of the Protestant-controlled Ulster Party. Sensing a possible awkward moment in the cab, I said “oh.” Though it seems as far as Protestant North Irish leaders go, this one isn’t bad in the Catholic’s eyes (after all, he apparently is showing more interest in co-operation with Sinn Fein and other catholic groups which previously would’ve been unheard of).So all was well in the taxi cab once again, as we spun through Falls (Catholic neighbourhood) and Shankill Roads (Protestant neighbourhood) heartland of the hardliners of each respective side—and surprisingly only a block or two from each other—where you traditionally find massive walls of “Troubles” propaganda (though these are quickly being painted over), union jacks and ulster flags (prot. Side) and Irish Republican flags (Cath. Side), Ulsterfest (not actual name) parade paraphanelia (prot. Side) and green and white Glasgow Celtic jerseys (cath. Side). Because of the history of violence between these two communities, the British gov’t erected a tall wall (much higher than the Berlin Wall) designed to keep them from fighting, although it is still about a 5 min drive around the wall. The communities are still heavily divided—if you were born Catholic or Protestant, you couldn’t live in the other’s neighbourhood if you wanted to, and you probably wouldn’t want to—but generally speaking, the “Troubles” are over and its clear from a stroll around Belfast that—apart from a handful of hardliners—peace has arrived in Belfast and the majority of people want it to stay that way.

Indeed, much of the economic boom that has exploded in Dublin and London, has also hit Belfast, and the city is feeling better than ever. New buildings are going up everywhere, new immigrants are flocking to the city, and taxi drivers—ever the pulse of the people—are excited and talkative as blazes about their city (if you do go to Belfast, make sure you take a cab, even going from the bus station to the ferry port, I felt like I got a free tour of the city—and the fare wasn’t so bad either). Nah, Belfast folks were very friendly—grateful to see the influx of new visitors after so many years of isolation and fear—and are exuberant in their long-awaited boom. This is particularly evident in the Titanic Quarter (Belfast has been a major shipbuilding and transportation technology hub for over a century, creating the Titanic amongst many other crafts, although as my taxi driver pointed out, it a bit of Belfastian irony that after any countless number of famous ships that Belfast created—and still creates—that float and go on to greatness, the quarter got named after a ship that sank.) Here you can find a new hockey arena (yes, ice hockey) which seems to be run by Canadians yet Belfast is promoting the hell out of their “Giants” and while they ain’t exactly NHL, it’s more than I expected here for sure. Also, the guy who ran the pub at the stadium, and apparently once ran the team, was from Gimli, Manitoba, not far from where I grew up. Small world. Though I guess where there’s hockey, there will be a Canadian.

There was also another Canadian I encountered in Belfast, more closely related to me than Reverend Paisley. My father. Excited about the prospect of me presenting at a conference in the UK, Dad was eager to fly to Europe and see me (my parents don’t travel much, so this was huge). So I skipped the morning sessions at my conference (to be honest, I have a hard time listening to someone read their paper out loud anyway when there is a foreign country to explore just out the door, so I skipped a great deal of the conference, but I stayed for the food). Nah, actually I did meet some people at the conference, most notably a Japanese woman who had moved to Ireland (and consequently spoke English with an Irish accent, but with a hint of Japanese), and a Singaporean/Australian, Belgian Palestinian, and American Israeli (Interestingly the Palestinian and the Israeli (both of which had spent a great deal of time in Jerusalem, were heavily involved with their particular “sides”—the Palestinian girl’s father was the representative of the Palestine in Washington, yet amusingly were bunking together in the same B&B with the Singaporean/Australian.) Indeed, my father and I spent a good deal of time hanging out with the Aussie, the Palestinian and the Israel as we explored Belfast as a group. I should probably mention that 3 girls where all from schools like Harvard or London (there few Oxfords, Cambridges, and of course Yorks at the conference as well), so they were rather smart cookies, although the Palestinian complained heavily that her boyfriend was far too obsessed with collecting transformers (the toys not the electrical devices—and I do have to clarify the difference, because it caused a great deal of confusion for my Dad).

Speaking of which, the conference itself! I did actually do something there, but as I had prepared my presentation before leaving Canada, it had been a couple months before I really had a good look at it, and while I had planned on reviewing the night before, this review resulted in a grand total of 5 minutes look followed by the exclamation “screw it, its not for marks” and then I fell asleep. The next morning I presented first thing, right out the gate, and I think it went over well although there were definitely some raised eyebrows, but then I can raise my eyebrows higher than anyone (but just the left one), so that didn’t slow me down. I didn’t have my paper with me, so I more-or-less just ad-libbed off the power-point presentation, which some people don’t like, but I say it’s more interesting than sitting and reading your paper Blah Blah Blah from the page (and memorizing the whole thing, I’m sorry, is just not an efficient use of time). Anyways, a couple people asked me questions, I enjoyed my presentation, a few people told me that I did well but some people thought I was too ambitious to talk about “macro” theory as a lowly master’s student (apparently you have to be Noam Chomsky or someone) and I guess it didn’t help that I said one of the keynote speaker’s (a Academic Celeb of sorts there, I think his name was Michael Mann) points was “dead wrong.” At any rate, while some of the older profs scoffed at me, the younger generation patted me on the back, and said “hey, why can’t we talk about macro theory? Don’t our opinions on the matter count?” As far I’m concerned, curiosity about the big questions is why people go to grad school in the first place (okay some people just want jobs), and if they’re not going to be asked here, where are they gonna be asked? Besides, we live in a democracy, a person only has to be born to have a right to speak. If you disagree with my arguments, fine, raise a question and we’ll talk about it, but if you disagree with a person in my position speaking as its “pulling rank” let me suggest that if rank is so important to you, you might want to consider enlisting in the military (I hear they’re looking) as they have offer generous payments and exciting travel opportunities.

Giant’s Causeway and around Northern Ireland

As with most places, you can’t say you’ve really seen a country until you’ve gotten out of its major cities. So when the girls suggested a tour of the Giant’s Causeway and rural North Ireland, we thought, let’s giv’er a go.

The Giant’s Causeway—make that, the Gye-ant’s Causeway—is a serious of unusual rock formations along a seaside cliff that take the form of seemingly man-made octagonal columns. Boring scientists will tell you that the rocks were formed after molten-magma was accidentally allowed to cool in a uniform environment many millennia ago, but local legend is much more interesting. Apparently, an old friendly giant named Finn MacCool used to live in these parts, and he used to like to boast about his strength and size, so when he heard about another giant in Scotland, he built a bridge of stepping stones through the Irish sea to get to Scotland and do battle (always with the doing of the battle). When the Scottish giant came to confront him, Finn realized the angry scot was twice the Irish giant’s size, and like a true warrior, ran back to Ireland with his tail between his legs and asked his wife to hide him, which she did by dressing him up as a baby (I’m presuming she was inserting her own editorial comment on his bravery). The Scot chased after him, across the bridge, into Ireland, but when he got to the house, and saw the giant baby, he ran back to Scotland saying “If the baby’s that big, no way in hell am I fighting the father,” except with a much better Scottish accent. He tore up the bridge on the way back, so Finn couldn’t follow him, leaving the giant’s causeway in Ireland and a similar geologic formation in Scotland across the sea. The moral of the story? Big men are babies.

The Causeway itself was impressive enough, and the rock formations do look like something from out of this world (I’m sure someone has used them to prove the visit of aliens or some such thing), but the whole coast is equally rugged, green, and magnificient, especially the area around the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge which sways between the shore and a rock, and sways over the thrashing sea (and apparently is held-up by velco and duct tape, or so they told me as I crossed it). We also stopped in the town of Bushmills, where apparently there’s a whiskey distillery, but we opted instead to visit a local drinking establishment and try whiskey the old-fashioned way, and I’m glad we did. It was one of the best pubs in Ireland, filled with people in the middle of the afternoon (this is not uncommon in Ireland) and friendly folks. One guy explained I think (his accent was rather thick) that the pub had been newly renovated and that the bar itself was half of an old fishing boat. When I asked him what happened to the other half, he replied rather obviously “Well, it sank.”

Ireland (aka, Southern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Land o’ me Lucky Charms)

Between Belfast and Dublin, there’s a prehistoric monument called Newgrange that’s apparently a few centuries older than Stone Henge, or even the pyramids of Giza, and is sizeable enough to make me wonder why I hadn’t heard of it before researching Ireland for the trip a few days before. The sites themselves are huge mounds (more like man-made hills, and big enough that an entire monastery was built upon one of them at one point), initially built for funereal/ceremonial purposes although only the elite of the elite were buried here, and surrounded by undeciphered stone-carvings, and one at least you can actually crawl inside (on a guided tour only) and it really gives you the feeling you’ve entered a stone age structure (which is what it is). Nevertheless, these people hauled huge stones (we’re talking 4 tonne or more weights here) from across hundreds of kms to the site to build it (and they made more than one). And the roof of the central chamber, constructed in a rough dome shape strong enough to support a huge mound of dirt above it, and an achievement not unlike the pantheon in Rome (albeit on a stone age scale).

Galway

After Newgrange, we headed to the west coast and Galway, a charming little medieval town, with a thriving tourism industry (for better or worse, but I’ve seen worse). Amongst the cobblestone alleyways, there’s nay a place you cannot find a pub, beautiful designed though nothing like the character of Bushmills. The Claddaugh Ring is the most famous “respectable” local symbol which consists of a heart (for love), held with hands (friendship), and topped by a crown (loyalty). According to local custom, women wear the ring with the heart pointing inwards if they’re spoken for, and outwards if they’re on the market (a fantastic tradition I think we should import to Canada, as it’d make my job a lot easier and avoid a lot of unnecessary awkwardness).

The less respectable symbol of Galway would be the Galway Hooker. First off, it’s a boat, not a prostitute, but that didn’t stop the locals from naming a brew off it anyways, inspiring more than a few colourful expressions like “I’m spending tonight with hooker, “How much does a hooker cost around here?,” and “That Damn Hooker really knocked me out last night.” Needless to say, Dad loved this beer.

He also liked a beer called Murphy’s, although this has perhaps something to do with my semi-witty query, as he drank it, to whether he felt if something could go wrong, it probably would.

We both liked the Magner’s (North Ireland)/ Bulmer’s (Regular Ireland) Cider (It’s the same cider in both places, with the same logo, just a different name)

The Aran Islands

Just off the coast of Galway (and about a couple hours by bus and ferry), lies the Aran Islands, the biggest of which Inis Amor resembles a long shelf of seabed sticking out of the water. The Islands are fairly remote, being on the west coast of Ireland and the last thing standing between the Emerald Isle and the fury of the Atlantic (indeed, the ferry ride over and back was one of the rockiest I’ve ever been on, and my usual nervousness/motion sickness wasn’t helped by the lady who kept screaming “whoaaaa” every time we keeled over on a giant wave.)

Apparently, the first part of Ireland to be settled by humans (odd considering the Islands are nowhere near Europe or any other land mass but Ireland, and Ireland is huge compared to them and blocks the way to Europe, but then supposedly prehistoric Ireland was nothing but forest and considered unsuitable for agriculture… at first) The islands themselves are extremely rugged compared to the rest of Ireland, and it is rather difficult to believe they would have represented a “better” place to settle. Nevertheless, agriculture did—and continues to take place—on the island though judging by the shear multitude of abandoned stone fences it once had a much higher population.

That said, it’s a great place for cycling, with paved roads and ancient stone fences and ruins and the only traffic really is a handful of cars, roosters, sheep, and maybe the odd pony who tries to eat your shorts when you pose for a photo with him. You know pickpocketing is a problem in Europe when even the pony tries to steal your wallet.

The Islands are small and underpopulated, but they’re absolutely soaked in old ruins like 1000 year old Celtic forts, abandoned churches, and above all stone fences as far as the eye can see. Like I said, it’s got a rugged climate (basically takes whatever the Atlantic cares to give it, before it hits Ireland), and when you get tired (or need to seek shelter from a random shortlived storm that can up often) you just pitch your tent in a field or—like me—hide out in an abandoned sod lightkeeper’s house. On that note, here’s what happened. When we rented our bikes the sky was relatively clear, but by the time we reached the top of the hill (and had long left the town), a torrential rainstorm hit us, and we needed to reach shelter. As we had left town, there was nothing in sight except abandoned stone fences and dimly through the fog, what appeared to be a lighthouse. Seeing this as our only option, we abandoned our bikes (theft really isn’t a problem here), and ran up to it. It soon became clear, however, that it was abandoned—and furthermore locked—so no entry could be gained, however there were some nearby ruins of a traditional lightkeeper’s house nearby (one that had been probably done up as an outdoor exhibit of sorts) with sod house and poor insulation, but it was better than nothing so we headed inside finding about 15 to 20 soaked travelers inside having had the same brilliant idea of going biking in the rain. It was something like a Chaucerian Miller’s Tale, except with all the storytellers coming from different countries around the world, everyone exchanging stories while they waited out the storm. Good times.

When the storm finally abated—or at least it seemed to be raining less—we headed out again, reclaimed our bikes, and continued down to the island ultimately reaching an ancient Celtic fort looking out into the heart of the Atlantic. If you have an image of Irish cliffs in your head, chances are they looked something like this.

It kept raining and not raining periodically throughout the day, but we kept along our way, cycling down old country roads, early medieval cemeteries and churchyards, and searching for that ever elusive pub. Eventually though, we had to return to the “mainland.”

Dublin

As far as metropolitan centers go, Dublin is Ireland’s shining jewel in the Celtic Tiger’s crown (Dumb question: Do Celtic Tigers have green stripes?) While there’s a big book and art history here, ranging from the medieval book of Kells up through James Joyce and ultimately to the likes of U2, we tended to focus more on pub entertainment which while plentiful was not as talented, and somewhat touristy, compared with what it had been in other parts of the island. Don’t get me wrong, Dublin has plenty of fantastic and beautiful pubs but they definitely seemed to lack character—although certainly remained popular—compared to other drinking establishments we’d indulged in on the island. Like for example, you can go to distilleries like Guinness or Jameson (pronounced JAMeson) Whiskey, which can be interesting and they give you a free shot, but often they feel like you’re walking through a beer commercial except instead of girls in bikinis there’s retirees from Nebraska. That said, they’re still good experiences, and I learned a lot about whiskey (which I’m getting altogether too used to drinking). Well when I get tired of whiskey I can always switch back to my Magner’s or Bulmer’s Cider (North and South respectively).

We also saw the Dublin castle, which is actually more of a palace, while the place had many ornate ballrooms and halls—as fitting a former bastion of the British Empire—the most interesting part, in my opinion, was the underbelly of the old castle walls and fortifications, and the moat that was filled by the river Pommel which now has been buried deep underground Dublin but you can still see it flowing (it still flows underground) in parts of the underbelly.

Of interest though was the Dublin Fringe Festival, which my Dad wanted to go as he knew I had always gone to the Fringe Festival in Winnipeg and was curious as to what the blazes these Fringe Fests were all about anyway.

Of course, if you’ve never been to a Fringe Fest, I should explain. Basically it’s a theater festival featuring mainly low-budget small cast (ie often 1-3 people) performances on often off the wall material that can range from the spectacularly awful to the spectacularly awesome. As I heard it once, though I could be wrong, theatre companies basically apply to perform, and few are chosen at random and given funding.

At any rate, since this was going to be Dad’s first Fringe show, it could go any number of ways, but I had tried to pick something light and funny but what they gave me was “Harry Bottom and the Jock Strap of Destiny.” When the show began with an out-of-shape guy dancing around the room in nothing but a leopard skin speedo, I knew we were in trouble. That’d be bad enough on its own, but just imagine watching it with your father. Not exactly the kind of male bonding we were looking for.