When I walked away from the capital I felt a certain calm. The bus crossed green fields and approached the coast with its severe cliffs, No transition. Earth ends sharply, as angry with the sea.
The bus stopped in front of the giant road (Giant’s Causeway), a legend name to explain a strange phenomenon. You have to put many zeros over the years to go back to the era where there were volcanoes expeld with rage. Today, more than 40.000 Basalt columns form a kind of cobblestone, with hexagonal geometries, which costs to attribute to the action of nature.
We arrive at a place that more than wounds exhibits its gangrene explicitly.
Later we look out new cliffs, full of flowers that could not soften the abruptness of their walls. We were stopping all morning in different viewpoints, unreasonable cameras, crossing hanging bridges, Visiting Celtic ruins, toothless castles that continue to appear to the sea. And so, Little by little we were forgetting Belfast. But then we arrive at a place that more than wounds exhibits its gangrene explicitly.
Derry o Londonderry
Catholics call it Derry, Londonderry Protestants. In any case, it is a city where I could not breathe. It is much smaller than Belfast and here are marked neighborhoods without subtleties. Signs direct messages show both sides. At the entrance of the nationalist part it can be read: "Now you are entering the free Derry" and in the unionist area the poster says: “Londonderry, The Republican West Bank is still besieged. We will not give up ". And so they are. Today. Now.
The waitress and the client looked at me how you only look at a fool and they didn't say anything. I drank ashakes I could and left there.
It rained and the sky was so gray, I had the feeling that never, never, The sun could shine here. I wanted to think that it was the form consistent with which the climate besieged to this city of gray thoughts. I entered a pub from the Protestant area. The waitress, A kind lady served me a beer. A man looked at me in the bar. Then I released one of those stupidities that are released precisely to say something and not seem stupid: "This is a quiet city, right?”, I snapped, And instantly I bit my tongue without understanding why I said that. The waitress and the client looked at me how you only look at a fool and they didn't say anything. I drank ashakes I could and left there.
While walking through the wall that separates both sides from the city, I thought about the root of the conflict. Actually both sides are unionists, Some want to continue belonging to the United Kingdom and the others are divided between those who want the total independence of Northern Ireland and those who seek to integrate into Ireland. I don't know if religion is an excuse or rather the essence of discord. In any case, Beyond ideological discrepancies, political and religious, It is evident that the only thing they share is an irreconcilable war past.
Several artists have painted their horrors to remember the debts of the other party. No one forgets, is, They insist on keeping tragedies alive.
On the hill where the unionist neighborhoods are settled, I felt the impact of the murals on the facades below, of Catholics. Several artists have painted their horrors to remember the debts of the other party. No one forgets, is, They strive to rescue memory, In keeping tragedies alive. The 30 January 1972 It took place here, A fact that marked the history of the northern Ireland conflict. The so -called bloody Sunday (el Bloody Sunday, who sings u2), marks the date on which the police -Engle- attacked a group of Catholic protesters. They died 14 People, several young people among them. The fallen monument is always full of flowers.
The two main political parties campaigned in their different neighborhoods, which seemed to me that it made very little sense here, because the votes are already distributed. Any speech seems to exclude the other party. Be, That seems here the question. You are there or here, you are or are not one of ours.
There is a shy statue, In a small roundabout of the city, that tries to commemorate the end of the open war: Peace between Protestants and Catholics, Between unionists and nationalists, between a minimum majority and a great minority. But the truth is that a stone carving in stone does not seem sufficient.
I kept raining when I left Derry or Londnderry or the saddest place in the world.
