Belfast and Northern Ireland

Since I was on the most whistley of whistle-stop tours of Ireland, I didn't have a lot of time to plan Northern Ireland and I also discovered really quickly that trying to get anywhere by public transport in either Ireland or Northern Ireland is a NIGHTMARE.  Therefore, I took my sister's advice and booked a day trip from Dublin.

Northern Ireland

First, all I can say is I massively, MASSIVELY recommend doing this trip through Wild Rover - they were fabulous from start to finish.  The tour itself was advertised as a day trip to Belfast (including a Black Taxi Political Tour or a trip to the Belfast Titanic Experience), the Giant's Causeway and Carrick A Rede Rope Bridge.  In fact, we also shoehorned in a trip to Dunluce Castle.


We started off from the Molly Malone statue at the somewhat ghastly time of 07:00, but it was well worth it because it was a long drive up the coast.  Luckily our guide reminded us that we had to get £ currency for Northern Ireland at the rest stop we had before the border because I had completely forgotten about that!  We arrived in Belfast at about 09:30 and drew up at the Titanic Experience.  I had chosen to do the Black Taxi tour, and our cabs were there ready and waiting for us - so organised!  We jumped in and headed straight off to the Falls Road.

Belfast murals

Peace walls

I had learned about the Troubles as part of my GCSE syllabus at school and I'd been interested in it at the time, but in the same sort of way that one might be interested in WWI or WWII - it seemed so remote to me and I never really comprehended that people (including teenagers like me) were actually experiencing the Troubles as I was comfortably learning about them from my nice safe classroom.  The Black Taxi Tours are run by people who grew up around the Falls Road and who had first hand experience of it, so their accounts really bring it to life, especially as you are seeing the buildings and the roads at the same time.  The Falls Road still has ever-changing political murals, and numerous plaques show where particular political events took place.  The most surprising thing to me was how close the Falls Road and the Shankill Road are - they are literally neighboring.  Belfast is absolutely tiny, so people living in either road must have heard every disturbance on the other.  The city is also still walled and still locked up at 22:00 every night and flags are still flying above various properties so you can still see how it was partitioned.  In addition, the peace walls (ie walls which segregate the city in an attempt to keep the peace between the factions) are still up, and will not come down until at least 2023.  They are the longest peace walls in the world and have been signed by all sorts of people including Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama. And me.  People get excited about that I hear ...

Signing the peace wall

Once we'd finished the tour, which also took in Crumlin Road Jail and the Court House, we headed back to the Titanic Experience to pick up the others and get back on the coach.  We had time for a very quick peek into the Experience and it did look amazing - if I go back to Belfast that'll be high up on my list!  I'm glad I did the tour though as it was fantastic and the highlight of my entire trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Once we'd managed to herd all the cats back onto the coach, we drove up to the Giant's Causeway, where we were to spend a couple of hours exploring and another hour having lunch.  We did stop off at Dunluce Castle enroute though which was nice - it was just a quick photostop and then we got back into the bus.  Once we got to the Giant's Causeway, my new mate Sam (whom I'd met on the Black Taxi Tour) and I decided that we would have lunch in the pub first and then explore, because then we'd be able to judge our time better.  The pub was the cutest ever!  It was housed in this little thatched cottage with peat fires burning to keep it toasty warm and it was lovely.  We wanted proper Irish food so we had Irish stew and it was delish!

Giant's Causeway

Once we'd finished we headed back out into the cold and miraculously ... the weather had completely cleared!  It was now perfect blue skies, so we definitely made the right decision in eating first.  You can't see the Causeway from the pub, so we followed the path over the hill and down and hoped for the best really.  At one point there were two roads we could take, but everyone seemed to be heading down hill so we followed the crowd. As it turned out this was the right decision (though either would have taken us to the Causeway, the lower road was by far the quickest).  Once we got there, it was amazing.  There is no other word for it - it was like nothing I'd ever seen with the rock formations heading out to sea and then upwards and outwards towards the cliff.  Sam and I wandered over it for ages, just taking in the views and the rocks and the sea - it was so beautiful!  Finally we realised that we'd better get a move on if we were to make it back to the coach in time, because we'd decided to take the longer route back over the cliff.  This was a brilliant choice as it was absolutely lovely, but it wasn't for the fainthearted!  It was a massively steep path up to the top of the cliff, but it was gorgeous when we got up there, covered in heather and gorse with the fabulous view over the Causeway to the right.  We got back to the coach just in time and hopped on, ready to go to Carrick A Rede.

Carrick A Rede

  I was a bit nervous about Carrick A Rede - it's an old fishing rope bridge which joins a small island just off the coast.  However, given that both the mainland and the island are based on cliffs, the rope bridge is incredibly high and I'd heard it was super wobbly.  Heights are nooooooooooooooooooot my favorite thing at all, so I was a bit skeptical about how much I'd enjoy this, but it was only 1 Euro so I figured I'd go ahead and have a look and then decide.  In the event I decided just to DO IT as how bad could it be?!  It wasn't so bad til the evil child in front of me decided to jump over it, shaking the entire thing from side to side.  Great kid.  Loved her.  However, once I got over to the island it was well worth it - Sam and I took approximately one million pictures as it was stunning.  It was another cliff-top walk back to the coach which gave us the opportunity for a few more pictures before we got back on the coach and started the drive back to Dublin.

Holding onto the floor at Carrick A Rede!

I absolutely cannot wait to get back to Northern Ireland!  I loved it there; it was so beautiful, the people were really nice and Belfast was so fascinating.  I also felt like I was standing at the crossroads of history when I was in Belfast - I could stand facing the Titanic Quarter, which is brand new and represents wealth and modernity and progress, or I could stand facing the old city with its locked walls and murals and bullet holes and poverty.  I know that Belfast will not stay like that for long, so I am really looking forward to going back a number of times and watching it change!

I think my enjoyment was also helped by the fact that the weather was actually quite nice in Northern Ireland - from the time we got to the Giant's Causeway, it was lovely!  The scenery was so stunning with crystal clear waters.  It wasn't what I expected - it was a million times better!