Belfast Day

A couple weeks ago my classmates and I went to Belfast for a day of cultural activities.  We started off the earliest we have had to rise this semester...we had to be at the bus station at 8 a.m.!!  I know crazy right. This meant we had to leave the house around 7:30 am. Yeah I know big deal but we’ve kind of gotten used to sleeping in as much as possible, though this has changed now. Anyway, all 8 of us were there at 8 am. To get our tickets, yes I am leaving out 2 classmates, that’s because they are always late but this time they were especially close to missing the bus. We all had boarded the bus and watched them run up and barely made it on before we pulled out from the station.  We got to ride in a two-story bus—ok this was exciting for me because I haven’t been in one before. We sat right up front so not only did we have an awesome view but extra legroom too! It was a good start to an early morning.

We arrive in Belfast, which we had all visited earlier in the semester, so we were familiar with the set up and everything. Found our bus to go on a tour of the city. A group of us girls had already gone on a tour when we were here before so a lot of it was repetition but it was still a good time and we saw a few new things. I guess I should say that unfortunately my camera was dead so I didn’t take any new photos but I might put a few from some of the other students on here.

After a nice lunch break in the city center, we load the bus again and head off to Stormont. This is Northern Ireland’s parliament building. Had to go through airport-type security, and you have one in every group...Andy set off the alarm. Thankfully it was just a bunch of change, a phone and his house key in his pocket that did it.  So we headed on up and to meet Mervyn, our Programme Director inside. After donning our visitor passes we meet up with a representative from the Education Department who gives us a presentation over the history of Stormont and how their government is set up now.  We then had the privilege to meet representatives from each political party and listen to them talk about their party, their own personal stances, etc. It was nice to get to see the spectrum of stances and beliefs that are represented in their government. It was sort of interesting because it is difficult for me to translate ok so is the Northern Irish government the equivalent to a state government or more on the national government side?  Because they are part of the UK, but yet they are so different and their history is just completely different, and yet they are part of the European Union too.

Regardless here is some of the information we learned about:

The Northern Ireland Assembly is set up under the Belfast/Good Friday/1998 Agreement (They can never decide on terminology because of the differing opinions.) How their government works, not only is it a power sharing government but they also use what is called a referendum to gain citizen acceptance in order to pass a bill into law so that the people of Northern Ireland have a say in the law if it is going to change or alter their constitution.  So they decided to take a referendum with the Good Friday Agreement and the North had a 71% consensus and the South (Republic of Ireland, ROI) had a majority consensus of 94.4% in amending the Irish Constitution.  The thing to know about this agreement is it involved 3 main players: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and England. (America also played a huge role in this but only a persuasive/supportive role.)  So how this all worked out is through what is called Strands in the Agreement. Strand 1 deals with the democratic institutions in NI, mainly setting up a power sharing government between the two disputing sides, Republican/Nationalist and Loyalist/Unionist. Strand 2 deals with the North-South cooperation in setting up councils to deal with matters that affect the whole island.  Strand 3 deals with the Northern Irish government and British government.

Britain still holds control over Northern Ireland, they are considered a part of the United Kingdom (Britain, Wales, Scotland, and NI), but Northern Ireland Government is a devolved government meaning that Britain is gradually giving more power to NI as they see fit.

There is the Assembly and Executive Committee. The Assembly has 108 elected members while the Executive committee has 11 department ministers and the first and deputy first ministers. (Note: First minister and Deputy First Minister have equal powers, this is simply because First minister Peter Robinson’s political party, DUP was the majority winner with, Deputy First minister Martin McGuinness’ (he’s my neighbor!) party Sinn Fein coming in second. This is part of the power sharing deal.

Since 1998 there have been some hiccups in the road to being a devolved government and they had to meet again and work out their differences in the St. Andrews Agreement. This mainly reviewed everything in the Good Friday Agreement and fixed minor details but was very important in giving the impression of keeping the peace.

Ok so that was a ‘brief outline’ of what the NI Assembly does, sorry it was so long but it is very interesting to try to determine what it really does and how it works and everything. Difficult not to constantly compare to the US system because who says we have it right or wrong but just trying to analyze it.   It is by no means complete or completely successful how they have it now. They are going to have to start the reviewing process again soon because things are getting tense on the community levels again.  Also something else interesting, the UK (including NI) system of government uses a different system for elections as far as how often they must hold elections. At minimum they have to have a General Election every 5 years but the Prime Minister (Westminster) can call a GE at anytime.  When they have vacancies in the MP (Member of Parliament) seats, they hold by-elections. So say someone resigns from the post of MP, that constituency holds a by-election to vote in someone new. Their government has a lot of little differences from ours since they operate on a parliamentary system and just because we all can’t be the same I guess.  I know the one thing I do like about their legislative process though is the referendum requirement for changing/altering the Constitution. Just makes sense to have direct support from the voters themselves.

Well in close, it was a very interesting day in Belfast and we all enjoyed being able to understand more of their jargon and acronyms for the parties and everything. It was just nice taking this field trip after we have learned about it for so long. Oh I could keep going…I just remembered a story our Education Dept. Rep was telling us when we were sitting in the chamber of the Executive about how they had to cover the entire building with tar and manure I think, during WWII so that it wouldn’t get bombed! And funny thing is it worked! Belfast did get bombed a couple of times but Stormont was in once piece and was actually used by the English Navy/Air force as a headquarters I believe. Anyway it took about 5 years for a crew of men to clean the building after WWII. And interesting, the building is 365 feet wide, for the days in a year! I wonder if it is 365 and a ¼, ha…

Anyway I know this post is a little heavier as far as content but this is a culmination of everything I have been learning about this great country. And it really is a great country, I mean they have the best intentions but they are just two different views is all. Maybe having they same paths at first but both see a different end goal so it’s very difficult to not be frustrated that they have such difficulties in working together.  Well I will have a fun post after this! I’ve been working on it for a couple weeks now, gradually writing down the differences I see/experience in NI culture vs. the American way. Hopefully that one will stir up some comments :) Have a great day!

Stormont-NI Parliament Building

Looking back at Belfast from Stormont

Inside Stormont

Ceiling inside Stormont