Cad é mar áta tú?

Our morning correspondent is Patrick Gibbons:

And on the Seventh day…

Sunday morning was a refreshing change from the usual routine. Instead of being rousted out of bed early in the morning by someone’s loud jackhammer knocking on the door, we were free to sleep in past nine. After getting ready, the group caught a bus to the Catholic neighborhood on the Falls Road, and we attended 11:00 Mass at Clonard Monastery. Clonard is a very imposing place from the outside: a massive stone church in the Romanesque style, attached to large red brick monastery. The interior of the church is equally impressive; though very similar to certain Irish Catholic parishes on Cleveland’s West Side built at about the same time, Clonard is truly a sight to see. The columns are made of red granite, the walls are covered in mosaic, and the entire place is a work of art.

About this time the organ started to play, and we finally saw our program coordinator, Raymond Lennon at the console. Though we had all seen him once on Skype, he had gotten very sick by time we arrived and couldn’t be with us during our first week in Belfast. In the meantime, Raymond acquired something of a mythic quality, and there were some who began to wonder if he was real at all. (Not really, but it was a fun joke.) Once the organ was up and running, Raymond played “America the Beautiful” to honor the 4th of July for us. Later we learned it is the same melody as “God Save the Queen.” It was good to finally meet him.

The Mass itself was very interesting and our own Fr. Petkash of Walsh Jesuit concelebrated. The rector of the Redemptorist community said the Mass, which incorporated many traditional elements like bells and a haze of incense, though it was a very simple affair otherwise. Afterwards, Raymond showed us around the monastery, and we stood in the parlor where Fr. Alec Reid coordinated the first talks between Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin and John Hume of the Social Democratic Party (SDLP), the first step on the road to peace. From a window at the top of the monastery, we had a bird’s eye view of the peace wall which literally runs right up against the monastery. It was really sobering to see it stretch on, dividing the Catholic and Protestant communities.

After taking in this landscape, we left Clonard to spend our day on the Falls Road. The two poorest sections of Belfast are next to each other: the second poorest being the Falls (Catholic), the first being the Shankhill (Protestant). The Falls, despite being poor, is a very interesting place. Every sign for a pub, store, barber, etc. is in both English and Irish, and the neighborhood is filled with murals. While Unionist murals tend to be menacing and paramilitary oriented, Republican murals focus more on cultural subjects or historical events. Among other things, they commemorate the Easter Rising, the civilians killed by the use of rubber and plastic bullets, and the youth wing of the IRA. However, graffiti around the neighborhood has a different feel to it. For example, a sign attached to a telephone pole said, “Brits out, not Sell Out” or tags by the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), the dissident splinter group that rejects the peaceful approach of mainstream Irish republicanism. Though the Troubles are over and the violence has ceased, peace here hangs by a thread, and someone willing to cut that thread is all that is necessary to undermine decades of hard work on both sides.

After taking our short tour, we went to Cultúrlann, an Irish-Gaelic cultural center devoted to promoting traditional culture and music mainly through the medium of the Irish language. The center itself is housed in a former Presbyterian church that was abandoned as Protestants fled the Falls during the Troubles. You will hear more about our entertaining experiences at Cultúrlann from Katie Bolas.

Our afternoon correspondent is Katie Bolas:

After a tour around Clonard, we all boarded a bus and started off for Cultúrlann McAdam O Fiaich. Cultúrlann is Northern Ireland’s largest cultural center. It seeks to preserve the Gaelic culture through different forms of expression such as food, plays, music, and dance. Upon our arrival to Cultúrlann, we discovered we were a little early for the play rehearsal we were going to watch, so we moseyed about Falls Road where Cultúrlann is located in West Belfast.

We saw different organizations and murals. Two such organizations that were pointed out to the group were the two suicide centers very close in proximity. While many people died as a result of the Troubles, even more were left mentally disabled and scared. This has led to a period of increased suicide rates and has become a problem for Northern Ireland today. We also saw many murals memorializing the plight of many different people. We saw a large mural dedicated to the people who had died due to the rubber bullets used by the British soldiers during the Troubles.

We then headed back to Cultúrlann and enjoyed a true Irish experience, a bi-lingual play. The play we watched is called Pockets Full of Stones. It depicts an American company coming to Ireland to film a movie and the plight of some of the extras in the movie. We watched a scene in which the extras just found out that one of their contemporaries had killed himself, and instead of being allowed time to grieve for their loss, the actors are expected to continue on with the movie. All the parts are played by two actors and only half of the play is in English. Considering none of the group speaks Gaelic, it would have been hard to follow had not the acting been as good as it was. After the play was over, we all headed down to lunch.

After a large lunch of steak sandwiches, hamburgers, soup, scones, and an array of other foods, we learned how to dance, the Irish way. With the very capable leadership of our Céilí teacher, Māire Uí Bhruadair, we attempted a number of different dances. First we tried the Harvest-Time Jig. This dance consists of lines of three people opposite another line of three. Being the advanced dance students we are, Māire was using very complex terminology such as “take four steps forward and four steps back.” The next dance the group did is called the Waves of Torry. This dance consists of two lines, one of boys and one of girls standing opposite each other. While the dance consists of different movements, it takes its name from the “over” and “under” motions that are made during the dance, mimicking the motion of waves. The last dance we learned was the Siege of Ennis. This dance was similar to the first, except that instead of rows of three, we lined up in rows of four. Māire also taught us an Irish song, and then her husband graciously sang it for us. A few brave souls from our group, Katie Brennan and Mr. Brennan, even had the courage to stand up and sing a few Irish folk songs in front of the group. Colleen McCarty, another brave soul, stood up and showed the group a dance she had learned while she was involved in Irish dancing. After a round of “thank you” and “good-bye,” the group hopped onto the bus and went back to Queen’s for the night.

The night was extremely low-key. Almost everyone gathered onto the second floor for Ian Varnish’s scrambled eggs and Sarah Cifelli’s grilled cheese, or for some grilled ham and cheese. After dinner, a group of about ten people decided they needed to get some things from the nearby Spar store. The end of the day finally came after some talking and watching TV on both floors.