. . . You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
Seamus Heaney, “Postscript”
37° Fahrenheit, Light rain, with snow beginning at 3:00am. Current time, 10:06pm.
Well I’m on the ground here in Belfast. It is surreal. I know people say that word a lot to describe their experiences, and it can seem quite cliché, but my time in Ireland so far has been as dream-like as experiences can get. First of all, it gets dark at 4:00pm everyday, the sun does not rise until 8:40am, and the weather has been overcast every day but two, so there is always a half-daylight, grayness to everything. Secondly, there is a mist that is not quite rain, but not fog either, that magnifies street lights and hangs a heavy air about things. I don’t dislike it, though. There is a magical quality about the air. Third, everyone looks like someone I know. I see people on the street, or in a shop and feel like I know them. Y’all know Iredell County was settled by people from this region of Northern Ireland, the Ulster Scots, so no surprise, but it is an eerily familiar sensation. Fourth, I was so busy and tired from the end-of-semester grading, trip preparation, and Christmas, that it was hard to believe I was actually here. Can you believe it? In what life do I get to have this experience? I am still stunned and sometimes giddy. Reality is starting to set in, though. My classes will start on January 13th, and I am excited to begin a new term teaching Irish Literature & Poetry.
I have managed to pack a lot (of learning and history) into ten days. First there was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where I wondered how life would have been, how cold and damp, for Dean Jonathan Swift. I doubt he looked at his life the same way I am viewing it now. I always took him to be a funny man, full of humor and fantastic stories, the way they pinned down the giant in Gulliver’s Travels charmed me, so I am sure my reading of this place, on this day, was not entirely fair. The flags on the wall were tattered and black and the whole place smelled like bones. We walked on, through Temple Bar, with the pubs overflowing with revellers, and music spilling out onto the street. The walls were lined with murals and everywhere there was color to counteract the dreariness of the sky. Flags, red shellacked walls, painted brick, shining glass store fronts, and tiny holiday lights sparkled in the haze of twilight. Trinity College stood like stone royalty. It is no wonder there is a pub on every corner. Dublin is brimming with corners of cheer and warmth, little communities made all the brighter and cozier against the clouds. Contrasts make the meaning, right?
I traveled to Belfast by bus. The trip was easy. In two hours, they dump you off at Costa’s Coffee shop on Wellington, in the City Centre. From here, you can dip around the corner for a pint at the Crown, established in a building that dates to the 1880s, or walk into the Cathedral Quarter. My favorite spots in Cathedral Quarter are Kelly’s Cellars and Maddens. Both are Irish pubs with rich histories and live traditional music.
Everyday, I’ve managed to average about five miles of walking, exploring different roads and neighborhoods. Belfast is easy to walk. There is a lot to see, and many interesting places to visit. I have not even made it to the Titanic Quarter yet. Everyone rides the busses too. I saw a film at the Queens Uni Film Theatre, visited the Ulster museum (I’ll go back!), the Botanical Gardens and Palm House, (which looks like a greenhouse, and the Tropical Ravine.
I stumbled into all the bookshops I could find and secured poet Ciaran Carson’s complete poems in two volumes at No Alibis, and thrifted several maps from OXFAM, two of which will be perfect for hiking the Mourne Mountains later, when Mom shows up.
By far, the most compelling thing I’ve seen this week are the gates by the Peace Wall separating the neighborhoods of the Falls Road and Shankill Road. They are called the sectarian neighborhoods, because they are divided. One catholic, one protestant. An exhibit on The Troubles in the Ulster Museum made a statement that read something like; “While we have a shared past, we do not have a shared memory.” The history is complex and tragic for both sides, and not easily summed up in a sentence here. I’m sure you could read many books on the subject and still not arrive at a distinct perspective regarding this past. But the gates floored me. The wall is concrete block with various graffiti all over it and tall metal fencing on the top. I would guess it is at least twenty feet high to the top. It goes on for a few blocks and turns a corner. Then there are the gates. Metal, heavy-duty, huge gates, that are shut every night at 9:00pm to separate the neighborhoods.
Literary Connections
Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, and more poignantly, “A Modest Proposal,” is buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Above his crypt is a bust carved by sculptor Patrick Cunningham, and the epitaph, written by Swift, reads; “Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Divinity and Dean of this Cathedral Church / Where savage indignation can no longer lacerate his heart; Go traveller and imitate, if you can, this dedication and earnest champion of liberty.” Swift died at age 78 in October, 1745.
On Christmas Day, I visited Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, where Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke on two occasions during her visits to Ireland, one on June 2nd, 1979 and again on July 8th, 1981. I noted that I was 8 and 10 years old, respectively.
I saw the memorial to poet William Butler Yeats at St. Stephen’s Green on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26th. Later in the week, I saw two portraits of Yeats in the collections in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
In the Ulster museum there were several paintings by artist Paul Henry (1876-1958), who was influenced by J.M. Synge’s literary description of western Ireland in Riders to the Sea, (1904) so much that he traveled there to Achill to paint the place. Synge’s book is set on Inishmaan, an sland off the coast of Galway. I hope to go there. We are studying Synge’s book The Aran Islands in the Irish Lit class. It’s one of the reasons I am here. I first encountered the book in Jim Cahalan’s ecocriticism class at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and it’s never left me. Imagine writing so good it compels you to move there to paint the place, or to write poetry about it. That’s how good it is.
There are weeds growing through the concrete of Casement Park, a sad sight for football. The cab driver says it will be restored sometime in the near future, but it is in extreme disrepair at the moment. The literary connection is that Roger Casement was an Irish revolutionary, humanitarian, an advocate for the Amazonian indigenous, and a poet. A sign posted outside the stadium by the Roger Casement Commemoration & Re-Interment Association reads “Bring Him Home” and a mural on the other side quotes “Don’t let my body lie here—get me back to the green hill by Murlough—by the McCarry’s house—looking down on the Moyle. That’s where I’d like to lie.” Roger Casement was executed in London for treason in 1916.
It is a lot to take in. It is hard, and sad, and beautiful. Everyone I've met has been lovely. Everywhere there are friends it seems. No one seems daunted by the cold or the dark. Maybe its the Guinness, or maybe just the Irish.
The landscape of Belfast with its heavy legacy, is a text to be read over and over. And tomorrow, in the snow.