upcoming Ireland tour, and "the troubles"

I don't have any book recommendations, but I can recommend a good TV series called Blue Lights (currently streaming on BritBox). It's about a police force in the city of Belfast and is really fantastic. It shows a hard look at how the police have to deal with politics there and how scary their jobs can be.

Mardee, I love Blue Lights.
Tony, I took this tour just before the pandemic. I thought we learned alot about the 'troubles' during our tour, especially on our visit to Dublin, Derry and Belfast. The museum at the Kilmainham Gaol provided much insight into the prisoners kept there and executed there after one of the rebellions. You might ask your guide for information on day tours for that last afternoon. I haven't read anything but fiction on this time in Ireland's history. I do recommend the 2021 movie "Belfast." “Belfast” is the story of a Protestant family driven out of Northern Ireland by the same Protestant Loyalist forces that were attempting to purge certain neighborhoods of Catholics in what became known as the Troubles.
I loved our visit to Inishmore. In fact, I wasn't fond of Galway and was glad we spent the day elsewhere. Perhaps I was influenced by the hotel we stayed at - I thought it was the worst of the tour.

This was one of my favorite Rick tours and I've been on 9 of them. I know you will have a good time and learn alot.

Tony, I think you have an excellent attitude about the subject. We, as a people, need to learn what we can from history. I think your goal of learning is similar to visiting Auschwitz or Dachau, also very worthwhile. George Santayana would approve.

My wife and I took the Best of Ireland tour, enjoyed it very much. There was a lot of explanation of "the troubles", mainly from our guide, who was excellent. He was a native of Ireland, and I was happy to hear his perspective. We will be taking the 14 day Ireland tour, and I look forward to hearing a Belfast perspective.

Our children went to Inishmore with their HS AP Literature teacher on a Literary Tour of Ireland trip, and my husband and I went as well. We all loved Inishmore, far more than Galway. The Dún Aonghus fortress was fascinating, and had gorgeous views from the cliffs if you're brave enough to lie on your belly and look over the edge. We intended to ride bikes around the island but the weather was windy and rainy. There are always guides at the dock when ferries arrive to take you on a tour. We had a tour around the island with the wonderful, delightful Tomàs who was a wealth of information about the island and life on the island. We spent the night and enjoyed a rousing evening of music and dancing in one of the pubs.

I liked Inishmor. We stayed in Doolin, took the ferry to Inishmor.
We took a jeep tour, Aran Off-Road experience. It was great. We visited the wormhole, hiked to dun anghosa. The scenery is so pretty.

If you have the energy it’s worth looking at the ( much) longer history of Ireland to put the troubles in context.
It goes back to the Norman invasion in the 12th century and the plantations of the 16th and 17th century. There is a LOT of history and it is complex.
My ancestry is Irish catholic on my dad’s side and it was quite a shock when doing my family tree to find out I am almost certainly descended from welsh people who were ‘planted’ during Mary I’s reign.

It might not seem like an obvious watch but you could do worse than watch Derry Girls. It’s set in the run up to the Good Friday agreement and is a good, and very funny, view of life at the time through the eyes of teenage girls.
The episode with the blackboard is definitely worth a watch. It was recreated in an Irish museum because it so successfully demonstrated attitudes in Northern Ireland the time, my personal favourite ‘Protestants keep their toaster in a cupboard’!

We took a Black Cab tour on our last day, (not the day prior with the free afternoon) then we were dropped off at the train station (at our request) and we took the train back to Dublin. It was interesting hearing from someone who was a young teen during The Troubles.

We also enjoyed our visit to Inishmore Island. Our tour guide organized a group tour for us. It wasn't something we considered opting out of.

I was going to recommend Derry Girls as well- great suggestion. I'm not sure if your tour already does something like a black taxi tour but those are a good way to learn more and visit murals in Falls Road/Shankill areas. It's a bit strange seeing the "peace wall" up close. The Ulster Museum has quite a bit of info on the Troubles and is also worth visiting in general. Crumlin Road Gaol is another piece of living history (tho no longer a working prison) that I would also recommend visiting.

If you want to watch something, The Story of Ireland, a BBC documentary narrated by Fergal Keane, is very good, and helps with a lot of the context.

The whole history of British rule on the island of Ireland is complicated. The Troubles are one piece of this history. While I don't have a show or book recommendation (except Derry Girls) I do recommend that you take some time to visit the Museum of Free Derry as well as to take their tour. Both are located in Derry (the locals do not refer to it as Londonderry.) So much of the violence during The Troubles happened in Derry. Having been raised Irish-catholic, I had always heard it spoken about as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants however it was actually a conflict between Nationalists (those who believe in one Ireland, who's land was taken and language was forbidden to be used) vs the Loyalists (those loyal to the British Crown.) Definitely worth your time to explore more of this part of Irish history. I have not done any tours regarding The Troubles in Belfast.
As for the Aran Islands (and Inishmore specifically), we loved visiting! I would definitely go again (if the weather was good. Lol!) Galway is also great. Do you only have 2 nights in Galway with the tour and one of the days is going to the Aran Islands? The visit to Inishmore will be most of the day. I'd say go to the island as you will still get to experience the charm of Galway in the afternoons, evenings.
Enjoy your trip!

the 2021 film "Belfast" by Kenneth Branagh might be a good start.

Wow, what a bunch of thoughtful responses. Thanks to all for your thoughts and suggestions.

I'm really looking forward to this tour!

Hi Tony
I agree, you’re going to get more out of this tour if you read up on Ireland’s history. Our local guide in Dublin was wonderful but at times a bit confusing for me to follow especially when he was talking about Cromwell. It been years since I read it (I believe in college) but Leon Uris’ Trinity, in story form, goes into the history from the famine thru the 1916 uprising to give you a history of what lead to the resulting ‘troubles.’ Also, throughout the tour, our guide Declan used our bus rides to go into a lot of detail about Ireland’s history and then in Derry we had a local guide that gave us the history of The Troubles in depth.

As far as taking the ferry out to the Aran islands, I’m very happy we didn’t miss that, being able to walk out to and stand out on the cliffs by castle ruins overlooking the Wild Atlantic. Our only downside to that was the extremely rough ferry ride back as a storm was coming in.

Blockquote Both are located in Derry (the locals do not refer to it as Londonderry.)

It’s not as straightforward as that. Catholics refer to it as Derry. Traditionally Protestants and particularly Unionists call the city Londonderry, although I think Derry is more commonly used by some now.
To get round it, in news reports etc it is often referred to as Derry/Londonderry.

If you are into podcasts check out The Irish Passport. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-irish-passport/id1246162545

As for the Leon Uris book Trinity, I read that in High school (we had to read QB 17 and it put me on a Leon Uris kick) and I thought it seemed overly simplistic, and even though I had become disenamored with the Catholic Church, I thought his part there about Catholicism was heavy handed/not a fair portrayal.

As for Derry/Londonderry, I used google AI to ask about the local papers and their usage and it varies depending on their readership. I started to write "even a name can be used to divide people", but that doesn't feel like the right sentiment. I suspect that those people who feel strongly about the name (either way) have valid reasons for their feelings.

Wikipedia has a pretty exhaustive entry. There's also the Oxford Irish History, though it's quite the commitment. There are many movies on the subject, although they tend to be told from one perspective or the the other.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley movie tells of the 1919-20 civil war from the Catholic viewpoint. The Troubles since then are all rooted to back then.

We haven't taken a Black Cab tour (maybe next trip) but you can probably order a cab from either perspective. We walked from CS Lewis Square to Crumlin and got quite the education on the walk by talking with people on the street. It was the day of the King's installation, so everybody had an opinion. The Crumlin tour was quite good and a little different than Kilmainham.

Here is Rick's recommended reading list for Ireland:
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/ireland/books-movies
Take a look at the Fintan O'Toole book. I found it a bit dense and didn't end up finishing it.
I second (or third) the suggestion to visit the Museum of Free Derry if there is time in the tour to do so. Also, I don't know if it's still up, but when I was there last year, there were large placards on the city wall along Bishop Street that contained photos and quotations from women "on both sides" and their experiences. The Wall Museum Project, I believe it was called. Here is a video on the young women who started it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXALrrEFtJk
Say Nothing was made into a limited series on, I think, Hulu, that was very well done. Also, PBS did Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, a docu-series about the same events.

Milkman, a novel by Northern Ireland writer Anna Burns, is great work on the troubles. Sometimes history is better learned via fiction than nonfiction. It tells the story of an 18-year-old as she is pursued by a married paramilitary known as the milkman.

I've heard that Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is a great nonfiction book on the Troubles.

A visit to the Aran Islands is one of the best things I've done over five visits to Ireland. I cannot recommend it enough. Renting a bicycle in Kilronan, where there are numerous rental outfits, is great fun. And The nonfiction book The Aran Isles by acclaimed writer John Millington Synge is probably one of the two best narrative travel books (with Mark Twin's The Innocents Abroad) I have read.

I second Milkman as a great book to read -- plus Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland, by McKittrick and McVea.

I'm not sure how many people click through YouTube links, but I thought I'd mention a few things anyway. I'm an avid YouTube watcher.

A Troubled Land Archive is an archive of hundreds of hours of documentaries, mainly for TV, from 1969 until the present day. I'll link to the page with sorted playlists. I gravitated to the playlists of Panorama and World In Action, documentary programmes from the BBC and ITV respectively. Peter Taylor is a journalist who did some excellent work in covering The Troubles, and anything from this archive which bears his name in the title is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/@ATroubledLand/playlists

ITN (Independent Television News) is a news network from the UK, and they've been doing some sterling work with their archive on YouTube. There's a huge collection of archive news reporting from around the world, including Northern Ireland. Well worth digging through if there's other areas of interest too. I'll link to a video below which they just uploaded today which is appropriately festive in theme.

Christmas During the Troubles | Rare Footage of Northern Ireland Conflict (1969–1995) -
https://youtu.be/BTMgkQOScLg?si=lkaWgdbPvyVWGSoH

On a lighter note, but equally festive, I'll link to a video which pastiches a popular series of compilation albums, Now That's What I Call Music, but with a Northern Irish flavour. Now That's What I Call Sectarian - VOLUME 2. See how many of the jokes you get. Volume 2 is the funniest, but there's also a Volume 1.

https://youtu.be/S1YyuutaA40?si=SO3mSwu26ZTpZGvO -
Now That's What I Call Sectarian - VOLUME 2

https://youtu.be/mrVzhXOANSk?si=t3t3lqrWFwZWC2oA -
Now That's What I Call Sectarian - vol 1

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2UAFyW8p1pDrixctOP6ZxXM6cEuetZ5A&si=-QDxQF3EKLoFVzqe -
Vol. 2 Bonus Tracks

PBS had a series, Once Upon A Time in Northern Ireland which was excellent, giving first hand accounts of The Troubles.

Marion

I took this tour in May. I reread ”Say Nothing” before my trip and found that very helpful for understanding some of the things we saw in Belfast. The bus ride/tour along the Falls Road and the stop at the Peace Wall was fairly brief, but the book gave me a context for this. You might want to arrange for one of the Black Cab tours if you want a more in depth tour.

Our local guide in Derry went to high school with the creator of the ”Derry Girls” series. In particular, watch the final episode of the series. We passed by several locations (e.g., the Guildhall and the place where Orla danced along the wall) that were featured in that episode.

With regard to Inishmore …
I did not go and stayed in Galway. I tore my meniscus during the tour and ended up on crutches so I had to skip some of the activities on the tour. It poured rain the day our group went to Inishmore. I knew that I would not be able to climb up to the viewpoint and thought that waiting in the rain would not be fun for me. Talk to the guide. I’d wait to decide what to do until you get there. If the weather is poor, you might want to stay in Galway.

I thought Inishmore was interesting and charming. It was like stepping back in time. The ancient fort that I am unable to spell is amazing. I would not skip it.