This trip was very wonderful and informative. In my first blog post, I discuss being interested in learning about the overall history of the Troubles, as well as a potential reunification process. Now that the course is over, I feel like I have a much better understanding of the timeline of the Troubles. There weren’t a lot of discussions surrounding reunification, but there was a lot of discussion around peace building, which I still found interesting and necessary.
A personal highlight for me would be meeting people in the different cities we went to. My friends and I had a long conversation with two people around our age from Derry about politics, life in Northern/North of Ireland versus life in America, music, and more, and it was an eye opening experience. I felt like I got to know the soul of Derry through them. An academic highlight would be the panel we had with an ex IRA prisoner, an ex loyalist prisoner, and an ex British soldier. This panel was a great one to start with because we got three main perspectives of the conflict right off the bat. All of the panelists were informative, respectful and open with each other, and were graciously willing to answer any questions we had. I felt like I learned a lot just from this one meeting because I was getting so much insight into different aspects of the Troubles.
A challenge of mine was our meeting with the RUC. Due to my own personal beliefs, I knew that this meeting would be difficult for me because I knew I would disagree with what was being said. It was hard sitting through something that was upsetting to me, and I was actually surprised by how difficult it was. That being said, I’m very glad that I got to hear from them because although my opinion hasn’t shifted, my understanding of the conflict would not be complete without hearing from them.
From the standpoint of my career goals, which are centered around writing for feature length films, historical lessons are valuable and an immersive lesson into the Troubles is an excellent look into history and the human condition. Writing stories that feel real isn’t possible without these things. We must know why people operate the way they do in order to write them well. So although my career goals may not be directly related to this course, they are still closely intertwined. Overall, this travel course was eye opening, fun, uncomfortable, and incredibly lovely and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to go on it.