Irish Holiday Part 8 - Belfast t'other day

For our second day exploring Belfast, we focussed on visiting a few specific places.  Arthur wanted to see the Irish Republican History Museum which had been closed the previous day, so we set out for a lovely breakfast at a café nearby, the Wholly Ground Coffee House.  Throughout our Irish holiday, ot was surprisingly challenging to find breakfast places that matched our schedule.  We had great breakfasts at our Dublin hotel (Kilronan House), but the rest of the time it was a bit of a gamble. On the way there we found this mural linking Northern Ireland Unionists with Israel.

The Irish Republican History Museum was tucked away in a little hole in the wall, a mad jumble of artifacts and a very nice little library.  It was a contrast to the multi-media interpretive centre we'd visited earlier at St Comgall's on Divis Street.  

Example of a Cumann na mBan uniform.

Royal Ulster Constabulary uniform with ADRIC bonnet, next to an Irish Volunteer or Irish Citizen Army uniform (we are not sure which, as they had more or less the same uniforms!).

Button detail!  Royal Ulster Constabulary

Propaganda!

I explained to Arthur why I appreciated the punny nature of this mural.  First, I proved that explaining a pun makes it less effective.  Secondly, I proved that I didn't know that 18th-century writer Jonathan Swift is associated with Dublin, not Belfast, and that this Swift Quarter actually celebrates the birds!

We next made our way to Ulster University to visit the Ulster Museum.  Absolutely gorgeous campus!

I recognised the name on this statue :)

Signs in the Ulster Museum are in three languages:  English, Gaelic and (?) Scots!?!  The Scots is a bit surreal to me.  I can sound it out and make sense of it, but I'm not used to seeing it written out like that!

Heh heh heh.  "FAP".  

The Ulster Museum has both art and history, and these dragons were inspired by Game of Thrones, partially filmed in Northern Ireland.

From the Ulster Museum, we walked across Belfast to the port, where we visited HMS Caroline, a WWI-era light cruiser that is the only surviving vessel from the Battle of Jutland.

Next, we visited the Titanic Belfast, which is more of an "experience" than a museum.  It's great, loads of multi-media presentations, even a ride where patrons are carried across a recreation of the ship being assembled.  This is my only photo from Titanic Belfast, a view of the site of the Harland & Wolf slipways where Titanic and her sister ships were built.

We did get to tour Nomadic, which was a White Star tender, a small ship that ferried passengers out to liners such as Titanic.

As mentioned, Belfast celebrates Game of Thrones.  We didn't bother with the studio tour as (unsurprisingly) Arthur hasn't watched the series.  But we did see a couple of these stained glass panels celebrating iconic moments from the show.

Let's finish up Belfast with one last mural!