Our ship came into Belfast. Northern Ireland, like Scotland, is part of the United Kingdom, having Brexited. This lovely land is now mostly high tech and tourism, as we learned on our tour to the Glens of Antrim, nearby coast, and visit to Glenariff Forest Park where we had tea and scones.
Our tour was long--the bus ride was about 80 minutes one way to the Park and back with a slight complication discussed later. Our tour guide was a retired solicitor who had worked in Belfast for most of her 30-year law career. Upon retiring, she found she really did not know much of the history of her home town and as a great reader, she set out to learn more. Then, deciding she would like to keep busy and put her knowledge to work, she became a tour guide. We learned about the "troubles" from her, current economics, and more. We also learned she has a son, who is a doctor, but because of national medicine, he would like to do more with his medical knowledge and is thinking of emigrating to Australia. She hopes he will fall in love with a local lass and decide to stay in Northern Ireland.
She told us that about 3,600 people were killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This conflict largely ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and involved republican and loyalist paramilitaries, the British security forces, and civilians. The violence included street fighting, bombings, sniper attacks, and other acts of terror. The power and government sharing agreement signed that day ended the troubles. Now there are some "integrated" schools for kids that let both Protestants and Catholics in for a 50-50% balance. As we drove past some, we saw that these schools have the word integrated in their names.
We share some common social issues with Northern Ireland now in 2025: immigration unrest and high housing costs are at the top among our common issues. Immigrants, she told us, fill important labor areas in healthcare and hospitality, not unlike in the USA. While Northern Ireland farmers use less immigrant labor than us, they do use some. Young people can no longer afford to purchase homes as the cost of housing has risen so much. This isn't a California problem. This isn't a US problem, it is a developed world problem where desirable areas everywhere cost a lot for housing.
An unforeseen difficulty did occur on the tour. The bus driver and the tour guide do not have a passenger manifest, and always count the number of heads on board--each of them making these counts. They counted five times before we left port, and apparently arrived at a consensus of 41 passengers on board. At the end of our tour as we sat waiting to leave they could only find 39 of us. Everyone on the bus stated that no one sitting near them was missing. After waiting 45 minutes, we finally left as they had called the ship and the Captain said "Get back--your making us late to leave." We were the last ones to reboard and the shup sailed away soon afterwards.
Images from Glenariff:
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