Blog- Week 11

Kelli Monheiser

Blog- Week 11

Northern Ireland Field Trip

Over the past two and a half months, we have sat through many hours of history class where our History Teacher, Dr. Marley, has explained to us the copious amount of turmoil between the Protestants and the Catholics. He went through all the history from way back to the beginning of Irish history to the division of the Ulster Plantation and a bunch of other information that you and even I don’t really care to discuss right now. However, moral of both my story and my blog this week is Northern Ireland. There has been a great amount of troubles between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Many of which has made Northern Ireland very threatening to a Catholic girl. For this reason, I have been very nervous for this trip since the beginning. However, after coming on this trip and experiencing it for myself, I have come to conclusion that it is a very historic, as well as cultural place. Neither of which made me feel uncomfortable or threatened. In fact, it may even have to be my favorite place that I have visited on our fieldtrips. There is so much history, and for me, was remarkable to see first hand.

As much as I want to pick a favorite piece about our trip, I find that to be a very troubling to do. I enjoyed every thing that we did in Northern Ireland. The Giants Causeway was a very neat, natural landmark and I found the structure to be very unique as well as question provoking. I also enjoyed the town of Derry where we visited the Free Derry Museum and were able to get a one-on-one showcase of the museum by a Bloody Sunday victim’s sister. I enjoyed the many murals on building sides throughout both Derry and Belfast that the people use to tell their stories. I also enjoyed the Titanic museum where we were able to see where the Titanic launched as well as learn a lot of the building process and searching for the lost ship. But most of all, I enjoyed seeing the remaining division of Protestants and Catholics by different forms of boundaries. This was very neat to me because it gave us students the opportunity to both see the history that we were being taught as well as get great insight from a guide who experienced it all.

Although this blog consisted of a great deal of information that one may learn upon getting here, my point is that traveling through the field trips is a great way to learn as well as see things that may not be so appealing to a person. Overall, I have enjoyed all group field trips, but I must say, Northern Ireland is something to see.