Gordon Ashbridge: Photographer/Fire Fighter

A highlight for me thus far has been the lecture by photographer/fire fighter Gordon Ashbridge.  His work emanates his love for the medium of photography.  It is evident that he is drawn to the simple beauty of life, from the mystery of a mid-morning landscape to the quiet beauty of a child. Being a photographer myself, I was intrigued by the advice that he had to offer for our own photographic work here in Ireland. His advice was applicable both to the novice and the experienced. Tips like finding a creative angle, or understanding that it is not the equipment but the person behind the equipment that makes the photo are vital to be constantly reminded of. 
Aside from photographic tips, Gordon made obvious the lack of confidence that many Northern Irish are guilty of.  Even though he gave us a marvelous lecture and backed it up by allowing us to view his brilliant photographs, he described himself as an uneducated man of low confidence.  I would definitely vouch against that, but his lecture offered me insight into the general attitude of the Northern Irish due to the conflict that has saturated their history.

Seeing Reconciliation

Wow, it has been a little while since someone has posted one here so I’ll catch you up quickly. For the past couple classes we have had speakers from reconciliation sites and a movie critic. Our afternoons are filled with cooking, homework, and mostly going into downtown Belfast to walk and shop around without really buying anything. At night we go out to a variety of different places, sometimes pubs, sometimes places to dance and sometimes just back to our youth hostile where we stay. The interaction with the students at the residence hall where we cook are going great. They are really some great people. We usually just eat together and watch their amazing satellite T.V. with them for about a half hour or so. The past couple of nights, the ones without exams, they have been going out with groups of us to wherever we are headed for the night. Also, I am thankful that they have been very accomodating to us during the American Football playoffs.

But what I really want to highlight is our trip to Clonard Church/Monastery two nights ago. The reasons we went there were many. One, we thought it nessessary to experience a good Catholic mass. It was on a Thursday night so it was not a normal mass. It was calleda Perpetual Novena and was dedicated to Mary. A very new experience not only because it was Catholic (as some of us ARE Catholic) but also because it was distinctly European. Another reason for our going to the monastery was to meet Father Gerry Reynolds and Pastor Ken Newell. That is right. Pastor.  Rev. Ken Newell is a Presbyterian minister in Belfast and recently completed his term as the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Northern Ireland.  Father Gerry and Rev. Ken are two leaders of major churches in Northern Ireland and they became friends about 18 years ago and have been working to bring peace and reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants ever since.  They gave us a personal interview for about an hour on their lives, friendship, views on issues and hopes for the future. It was a privilege.

Keep reading!

Meeting Desy

One of the most interesting parts of being in Northern Ireland for me has been meeting people face to face and hearing what they have to say about the conflict, or as it is called here in what always seems to me to be a bit of an understatement “the troubles.”  On our first full day here we toured as a group some of the murals and sites in the heart of both Catholic and Protestant strongholds here in Belfast.  I was struck by the militant and hate-filled messages of the murals and also by the sheer number of them which told me that the conflict is still, at least in some ways, very much alive.  During the tour we were concerned about looking too much like tourists or being disrespectful of the neighborhoods that we were touring which were of course also home to the people that lived there.  Despite our concern, we were approached by one elderly man named Desy in the Catholic area of Falls Road who was more than happy to talk to us.  Desy had been living in that particular part of Belfast all his life, and his accent was so thick that we had to listen closely to understand what he was saying.  He asked us if we were visitors and where we were from, and when we told him the purpose of our trip he gladly made recommendations of sites we should check out.  He also invited us to attend mass at his church, which we are planning to do before we leave Belfast.  He told us that at his church he also had some rubber bullets (which were used by police to control rioting crowds but ended up killing children) which he really wanted to show us.  When asked about the troubles now, Desy tolds us “they’re over.”  Although meeting Desy was a mere few minutes of our 3 week-long trip, it was a highlight for me and really brought the human side of this religious, political, and economic conflict to life.

First Day Audio Clip

Steve Stockman Lecture - 06.01.06  (Quicktime must be installed)

The Big Red Bus

One of the best ways to get to know a city is by walking it; but before we can walk it you need to get your bearings so that you sort of recognize what it is you are walking by. On our first full day of class we did a bus tour of some of the major sites and murals of the city. Nothing makes you look more like a group of tourists then a big red bus and 18 people all carrying cameras around their necks. I guess we got over it and accepted our tourist roots. Justin, Steve Stockman’s intern, was our lead tour guide and when he had nothing left to say, our bus driver Freddy Ferguson shared his experiences. We got to see many of the murals that both the Protestants and Catholics have painted around the city and got some interesting pictures.  In several of the more risky neighborhoods we stood out like a bunch of tourists in a red bus and got some unwelcoming stares. We spent a little time at the peace wall and some of us signed our names. We also spent time in some of the different memorial gardens commemorating different people who have lost their lives during the Troubles. It was a great introduction to the city. Later on this week in small groups we will go on walking tours of different neighborhoods so that we can get closer to what it is we are studying. Different aspects of our tour required some explaniation, so in the morning before we jumped onto the bus Justin gave a crash course so that we would know what all of the different political and paramilitary acronyms were. It helped even though I still somtimes get confused between the UDA, UVF, IRA, RIRA, and what it is they all stand for. In general if there is a ‘U’ in it, it is Ulster or Protestant and if it has a ‘I’ it is Irish or Catholic.  Maybe it was because we were rolling 18 deep, but as I saw the expressions on different people’s faces I was reminded that we are outsiders and don’t fit in many of those neighborhoods. It is probably because there were so many of us, but I think it is harder to take us seriously in such a large group. We are here to study issues of reconcilation. It is just tricky to know how to do that humbly.

Fredrick Douglas mural:

Kids that have died from plastic bullets mural:

We can’t help where we are born but it does matter what we do with it

Friday we were gratefully allowed to sleep in until 9:30.  Some slept soundly after the previous night of very little sleep while others of us were wide awake at 2:00.  We walked the short distance from our hostel to the classroom in the Presbytery Chaplaincy and began to learn about the complexity of Northern Ireland.  Rev. Steve Stockman, our host and a native of Northern Ireland, gave us a summary of his experiences here and some of the history of the country.  He started by explaining how we are all victims to where we are born.  None of us can have any say in that but we can choose how we respond to the places and people we are born with. This will most likely prove to be a very important reminder as we seek to understand the conflicts here and in our own lives.  We learned that he grew up in a very Protestant part of the country about 30 miles away from Belfast.  He proudly informed us that he shares his hometown with God aka Liam Neisen who speaks the voice of Aslan in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Because the country is so small, only six counties, a little distance by American standards is a much longer distance here.  The thirty miles separting him from Belfast allowed Steve to only hear a few bombs while his friends who grew up in Belfast saw and heard much more violence.  We were encouraged to consider the politics of Jesus when reflecting on both Northern Ireland and the United States.  The quality company, teaching, tea, and coffee made for a wonderful first day of class.