9/21: Charming Belfast & Moving Milltown Cemetery!

After the fascinating political tour of the Catholic Falls Road and Protestant Shankill Road areas of Belfast, we made our way downtown on foot thanks to Steven's great map-reading skills, passing an interesting Art Deco building and attractive red-brick edifices on our way to the Cathedral Quarter.

St. Anne's Cathedral, also known as the Belfast Cathedral, was the Anglican church built in the early 1900s at the height of Belfast's Golden Age. The novel spire, nicknamed the Rod to God, reminded me of the famous spire we'd noticed by the General Post Office in Dublin at the beginning of our trip! 

The church interior was mobbed with people, not because they were praying, but because the city was celebrating Culture Day and booths had been set up inside for people to mill about. Unfortunately, it meant there was precious little of the church we could appreciate. 

According to a sign in the park across from the cathedral, the letters in THINK represented 50 garbage bags worth of litter, just a fraction of what was picked up on the streets of Belfast every day. By displaying the THINK letters in such a public space, the city wanted its residents and visitors to think about the effects of littering. Thirteen million pounds - about $18 million - was spent on keeping the streets of Belfast clean, money that could have been spent instead to benefit local communities; litter could end up in the ocean hurting and killing marine animals and seabirds; trash could make an area look uncared for and make people feel less safe; and it could affect how visitors and tourists remembered their city. There was lots to THINK about!

Apart from the Titanic Belfast attraction and the Ulster Folk Museum we'd toured the previous day on entering the city, the other major tourist site was City Hall that was built between 1898 and 1906. As so often happens with us, we lucked out as there were two spots on a tour beginning just minutes after we entered. The guide laughingly said Belfast was never like this and nobody was used to the hot weather and she needed to get sunblock on!

The striking Rotunda was adorned in Italian and Greek marble; the latter was so rare it was exhibited first at Hyde Park in London! The height of the dome was 173 feet, the same as that of the doomed Titanic. 

Murals around the dome celebrated the city's industrial might: shipping, linen and education. 

On the upper level was the Whispering Gallery where everything could be heard that was said below!

The chandelier weighed in at a whopping one and a half tons!

A German air raid in 1941 destroyed the Great Hall and many of the portraits. This one was damaged beyond any possible restoration so it was hung as an "honored relic of a tragically notable occasion."

When Councillor Arder Cardon became Belfast's Lord Mayor in 2015 just like his father had been, he chose to take a public bus to the ceremony as a nod to Rosa Parks from Birmingham, Alabama, and the need for a civil rights museum in Belfast. 

The Robing Room had cloaks adorned with 18k gold thread.
  

The Council Chambers with its public galleries:

Here sat Lord Mayor Steven!

In the center was where the press sat when the council was in session.

The clock, which dated from the early 1800s, was only wound once a month at the beginning of each council meeting to preserve its mechanism. When King George V and Queen Mary presided over the opening of the first Northern Ireland Parliament in June of 1921, they sat on these royal thrones on either side of the mayoral chair. 

The elegant Banqueting Hall seemed like a long way from the terrible memories and still-present barbed wire on Falls and Shankill roads.

The appropriately named Great Hall where receptions for 400 can be held banquet style. All the room's stained glass windows were fortunately moved to the country during WW II as Belfast's shipyards were targeted by German pilots. The room was re-opened in 1953 when repairs were made to the space.

On the lower level, the Famine Window was commissioned to commemorate the plight of all those Belfast citizens who died as a result of typhus and cholera from 1846-1848. 

We were especially curious about the Spanish Civil War Window after spending a month in Spain last fall and learning so much of that country's troubled past. With the agreement of all the political parties in Belfast, the window was commissioned to reflect the contribution of Belfast citizens to the fight against fascism in the war between 1936 and 1939. About 320 Irish volunteers fought against Franco's forces as members of the XV International Brigade. Northern Ireland, already deeply impacted by political and religious divisions, was deeply affected by these events and some played a significant role raising awareness to support the democratic cause in Spain. 

A statue outside City Hall of Queen Victoria was portrayed as "scowling down Belfast's main drag!"

Some of the seven domes at the magnificent City Hall!

I hope these photos of Belfast city center have given you a sense of how vibrant and attractive the city was once we got away from the distinctly Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods we'd seen earlier that day. I was so pleasantly surprised how much I liked the city, possibly because I wasn't expecting much and believing naively how The Troubles might well have still dominated the city. The few locals we came across and interacted with were also among the friendliest and hospitable of any city anywhere in the world, stopping to offer to help when we looked like we were lost, for example!

Steven and I always make a point of stopping at farmers' or city markets when we travel, so were happy to spend wander around St. George's Market just before they closed up for the day.

Having forgotten to look at the Titanic Memorial Garden while at City Hall, we retraced our steps. 

The memorial was erected to the memory of all those Belfast residents who lost their lives on April 15th, 1912, when the Belfast-built Titanic collided with an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. 

The last thing we wanted to visit before leaving Belfast and Northern Ireland was the city's Milltown Cemetery to view, from among the thousands of other graves, the IRA Roll of Honor where the Catholic martyrs were treated like fallen soldiers. 

A sign by the National Commemoration Committee indicated the "comrades, supporters (were) murdered during the 1975 pogrom" and "died in defence of the democratic, secular and socialist republic." Pretty inflammatory words.

Far less incendiary were the words penned by the Belfast National Graves Association that stated the memorial was dedicated "to all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom."

Another memorial was in loving memory of Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikers who died after starving themselves to death in the H-Block of Long Kesh Prison between March and October of 1981. Two others were also listed who died on hunger strikes in England. It was so sad reading the exact number of days each hunger striker went without food before the ten men and one woman passed. The shortest was 46 days and the longest was 73 days. The strikers ranged in age from 23 to 34.

It was impossible not to be profoundly moved by the loving tributes to the young people who gave their lives protesting for political prisoner status instead of treatment as terrorist criminals. 

Next post: Stopping at Boyne Valley sights on our way back to Dublin the next day.

Posted on November 7th, 2019, a couple of days before we leave on our next adventure to cruises in Antarctica and Patagonia and then visit Paraguay!