Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [513]
If you want to find out more about Northern Ireland’s murals, look out for the books Drawing Support (three volumes) by Bill Rolston, The Peoples’ Gallery by the Bogside Artists and the Mural Directory website (www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/murals).
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The park is 1.5km southwest of Malone House.
GIANT’S RING
This huge prehistoric earthwork (admission free; 24hr), nearly 200m in diameter, is a circular Neolithic ritual complex with a dolmen (known as the Druid’s Altar) in the centre. Prehistoric rings were commonly believed to be the home of fairies and consequently treated with respect, but this one was commandeered in the 19th century as a racetrack, the 4m-high embankment serving as a natural grandstand. The site is 6.5km south of Belfast city centre, off Milltown Rd near Shaw’s Bridge.
STORMONT
The dazzling white neoclassical facade of the Parliament Buildings (Map; 9052 1362; www.niassembly.gov.uk; admission free; grounds 7.30am-dusk, buildings 9am-4pm Mon-Fri) at Stormont is one of Belfast’s most iconic buildings; in the North, ‘Stormont’ carries the same connotation as ‘Westminster’ does in Britain and ‘Washington’ in the USA – the seat of power. For 40 years, from its completion in 1932 until the introduction of direct rule in 1972, it was the seat of the parliament of Northern Ireland. More recently, on 8 May 2007, it returned to the forefront of Irish politics when Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness – who had been the best of enemies for decades – laughed and smiled as they were sworn in as first minister and deputy first minister respectively.
The building occupies a dramatic position at the end of a gently rising, 1.5km-long avenue and is fronted by a defiant statue of the arch Unionist Sir Edward Carson. Tours of Parliament Buildings are not available to the general public, but you can visit the Public Gallery (from noon on Monday, from 10.30am Tuesday) and are free to walk around the extensive grounds, or you can take a virtual tour at www.niassembly.gov.uk. Nearby, 19th-century Stormont Castle (Map) is, like Hillsborough in County Down, an official residence of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Stormont is 8km east of the city centre, off Upper Newtonards Rd. Take bus 4A or 4B from Donegall Sq W.
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WALKING TOUR
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WALK FACTS
Start City Hall
End Milltown Cemetery
Distance 4km
Duration one hour
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This walk leads through the heart of Republican West Belfast (Map) from the city centre to Milltown Cemetery. Starting from City Hall Click here, go north along Donegall Pl and turn left on Castle St. Keep straight ahead along Divis St.
After you cross the busy Westlink dual carriageway, look along Townsend St, the first street on the right, and you’ll see the steel gates that mark the beginning of the so-called Peace Line, the 6m-high wall of corrugated steel, concrete and chain link that has divided the Protestant and Catholic communities of West Belfast for almost 40 years. Begun in 1970 as a ‘temporary measure’, it has outlasted the Berlin Wall and zigzags for some 4km from the Westlink to the lower slopes of Black Mountain. These days the gates in the wall remain open during the day, but most are still closed from 5pm to 8am. There are now more than 20 such barriers in Belfast, and a total of more than 40 throughout Northern Ireland, the most visible sign of the divisions that have scarred the province for so long.
Ahead on the left rises the infamous Divis Tower, a 20-storey apartment block. The security forces took over the top two floors of the tower block as an observation post in the 1970s, and continued to use it to monitor people’s movements until it was decommissioned in 2005.
Next, you’ll pass the Solidarity Wall, a collection of murals expressing Republican sympathies with, among others, the Palestinians, the Kurds and the Basques, along with several anti–George W Bush murals. Just past here, Divis St