Today we had our lovely breakfast and then scuttled over to the Ulster Museum, tucked away off the main street in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast. The museum contains around 8,000 sq. meters of exhibit display space, making it the largest museum in Northern Ireland. It first opened opened its doors as the Belfast Natural History Society in 1821, and began to exhibit art as well in 1890. Over the years it has collected a number of significant historical artifacts important to the history of N. Ireland.The main purpose of our visit was to visit a specific exhibit: the gallery dedicated to the history of the Troubles. This exhibit allowed all of the students to gain some sort of grasp on the events that took place during that period of violence and unrest, that they didn't have previously. For some it provided pathos behind the statistics, and for others who had not previously taken the course it provided a succinct collection of what occurred during those years. For myself, the exhibit combined with an art gallery containing pieces relevant to the Troubles, I gained a sense of the reverberations that resulted from the conflict here in N. Ireland.
In a nutshell, the Troubles was a conflict that began around the year 1968 in N. Ireland. If you remember, Ireland was previously under English Rule but established itself rather valiantly as an independent nation. However, there were those that identified as English or preferred the system under the crown. So after Ireland was partitioned into its respective areas, with N. Ireland being dominantly unionists and the Republic of Ireland mostly nationalists. There were those that thought that Ireland should have no English influence and should be united, and those that wanted to have the island be under Union rule. These differing opinions lead to conflict, which in turn lead to violence. The violence hit its escalation point at 1968 and only continued to rise. Catholics and Protestants were at each others throats for their sects. This forced the formation of paramilitary groups that dedicated themselves to fighting against the other side, specifically the police forces and government installations. Much blood was shed with 3.5k killed and over 47k injured. After a certain point, people realized that their was too much casualties over something so trivial so the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 and the major event was ended, though little deaths here and there still occurred.
In a nutshell, the Troubles was a conflict that began around the year 1968 in N. Ireland. If you remember, Ireland was previously under English Rule but established itself rather valiantly as an independent nation. However, there were those that identified as English or preferred the system under the crown. So after Ireland was partitioned into its respective areas, with N. Ireland being dominantly unionists and the Republic of Ireland mostly nationalists. There were those that thought that Ireland should have no English influence and should be united, and those that wanted to have the island be under Union rule. These differing opinions lead to conflict, which in turn lead to violence. The violence hit its escalation point at 1968 and only continued to rise. Catholics and Protestants were at each others throats for their sects. This forced the formation of paramilitary groups that dedicated themselves to fighting against the other side, specifically the police forces and government installations. Much blood was shed with 3.5k killed and over 47k injured. After a certain point, people realized that their was too much casualties over something so trivial so the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 and the major event was ended, though little deaths here and there still occurred.
We meandered around the museum at our leisure until tea time but I'll talk about that in a sec. The tea time that we were privy to took place at the Europa hotel which, by no coincidence, has ties to the Troubles as well. The hotel was bombed a number of times (28) during the thirty years span. However the hotel continued to rebuild and stay open, mostly due to the traffic of journalists that it received due to the heavy bombing.
The High Tea that we had was absolutely decadent. High tea was an invention of the working class people when the upper class having tea was a staple. The rich and powerful were able to afford tea, pricey at the time, and have multiple tea breaks throughout the day. However, if you were a working class man, you could not waste precious tea on a simple break, so when tea was drank, it was done so with a multitude of other food items; basically it became another meal. So when our tea was served, it was not a single cup of tea, but a pot of tea accompanied with tiers of pastries, scones, and sandwiches. It was incredibly fancy and wonderful. Which is odd because now high tea is all shmancy and beautiful when it was initially constructed for the poorer classes. Life's funny like that.
After our feast we went our separate ways and Marie and myself departed back to the museum, mainly for the nature exhibit to gawk at the various mammal skeletons. I enjoyed getting to look at all the skeletons and see the comparisons and contrasts to the human anatomy. Mainly seeing how the skeleton size and configuration was indicative of the function of the animal, and its limitations. Like the elephant leg/feet. The elephants had a radius that was actually fused to the ulna, meaning their was no supination or pronation of their feet, which makes sense considering their are quadrupeds and do not require that level of dexterity. Also their bones are incredibly thick, which combined with short but widespread phalanges and metatarsals show that their ability to generate a large amount of downward required to counteract gravity was impossible. In other words, I was able to see why elephants can't jump. Good times.
Tonight is actually our last night in Belfast as tomorrow we depart for