My Irish dinner..and my supportive friends! :)

Today a jump to the close close past, well yesterday...when I cooked an Irish dinner for some special friends..

As already said, the trip on Ireland was my first real solo trip....and I was a little scared, mostly of feeling lonely...or that something could have gone wrong..etc..

I did not tell a lot of people of this trip....superstitious reasons? maybe ...(well, the KLM flight cancelled the day before leaving was an input to this decision..;) ;)).....I did not share in the social network anything of my trip...and the main reason was that I wanted to live the trip really deeply and no need to 'social' sharing experiences, eventually I would have preferred sharing it with real people met during the trip...;)

And even less people known of this blog...I was not sure about its longevity ;), and if I had the time to write on it (which in fact I did not had!)...

But there were some special people who, for one reason or another, known almost all and cared how I was up there...so the dinner was for them (who also consciously played the role of tester...anyway fettuccine and sauce were at hand)...even if a couple of them were missing!! :)

PS: I love the look of this post ....;)....I feel a little like my friend Naima of Cucino da Vicino who cooks and writes sensations....(Naima, this is free publicity eh! ;* ;*)

So the DINNER.... :)

Irish dinners often begin with bread and butter....

The typical bread is the

SODA BREAD

(Irish: arán sóide) 

 

According to Lonely Planet, the soda bread born in the XIX century as consequence of the characteristic of the Irish flour to be "impalpable" which did not ensure good final results if mixed with the common yeast.

 

So in place of the yeast, the bakers began to use the sodium bicarbonate (also known as baking soda) which reacts with the acidity of added lactic acid, giving tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide (- and also the chemistry lesson is done ;) -).....these bubbles act as leaving agent...

 

My recipe of (brown) soda bread comes from some pages of an old magazine which I stored (- see mammy why I do not throw away anything???.;) -) ...specifically I Viaggi di Repubblica of 27 April 2000 ....(oh my God, the fact that I do not live in Rome anymore means that my life there stopped more or less when I left ;))....       

 

 Ingredients:

500 gr of whole wheat flour

500 gr of white flour

around 15 gr of salt

around 13 gr of sodium bicarbonate

800 ml of sour cream (panna acida in Italian)...this is the most expensive ingredient...I think 800 ml will cost you around 5.5 euro...- in Luxembourg)
25 gr of butter

How to prepare the bread:

Mix the two flours with the bicarbonate and the salt.

Add the butter and the cream...mix all the ingredients quite fast until the dough becomes soft and compact.

Give a nice shape, cut a deep cross on the surface to let the reaming bubbles to go out during the cooking, and put in the pre-heated oven for 30-35 minute at 200 °C (around 185 °C for a convection oven)..before turning off the oven check that it is light brown outside and that it makes a sound vacuum!

ready for the oven
(photo taken with compact camera)

 

 The result :):

 

out from the oven
(photo taken with compact camera)

  My friends loved it....I had never seen before Manu eating so happily ;) 

 

Brown soda bread
(photo taken with compact camera)

Suggestions:

This bread is perfect as salty bread (with the soup is fantastic) with butter on the top...but try also with butter and jam..you will never forget it! :)

Alternative recipes
(in Italian):

http://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Soda-bread.html

http://www.irlandando.it/cultura/cucina/ricette/pane-e-scones/ricetta-brown-soda-bread/
(In Irish and English...as suggested by an Irish colleague :)...thanks! :))
http://blogs.transparent.com/irish/oideas-i-ngaeilge-aran-soide-eireannach-agus-aistriuchan-bearla-and-an-english-translation/

The Easter Rising of 1916

Back to around 60 years before of all what characterised the rebellion of West Belfast and that is represented in the previous murals, Ireland was still under the British government.

With the aim of proclaiming an Irish Republic, and taking advantage of the commitment of UK in the First World War, an armed insurrection was mounted by the Irish Republicans, beginning the Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, and lasting for six days, mainly in Dublin.

This was called the Easter Rising, in Irish Éirí Amach na Cásca, and was the most significant rebellion since the 1798.

However, the British were more and better equipped, and easily suppressed the rebellion which led to an unconditional surrender on Saturday 29 April.

The leaders were executed, but the rebellion helped to enhance the will of independence amongst the people.

In December 1918, republicans won 73 Irish seats out of 105 in the 1918 General Election to the British Parliament on a policy on Irish independence.

In 1919 the Irish members elected in the British Parliament refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and established an independent legislature in Dublin, called "Dáil Éireann" (English: Assembly of Ireland). The first assembly (the First Dáil) convened on the 21st of January 1919 and declared the independence of the Irish Republic. In the same day, the Irish War of Independence began, an Anglo-Irish civil war which lasted until the 6 December 1921 when a treaty was signed.

A lot of history, just to show you the mural in Beechmount Avenue .....:)

Beechmount Avenue, Belfast 2015

The murals was painted in 2006, for the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

In the mural, a Republican volunteer is standing outside the burning General Post Office of Dublin. The emblems of the four province of Ireland (Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht) are also reported. The white lily between the emblems represents the sacrifice of the men and woman who have died for the establishment of an Irish Republic.

What I loved of the moment that I captured is the old man walking in front of the mural...the age-counting is wrong (the volunteer in the mural should have now more than 100 years), but the idea of the same volunteer walking nowadays in peace smoking a cigarette works quite well :) :)

Still on Kieran Nugent, the first Blanketman

I have already spoken of Kieran Nugent and the reason why he is called the first Blanketman.

I loved his courage.

Here there is another mural which represents Kieran.

Rockville street, Belfast 2015

I have also found in internet this interesting interview - from BBC - of Kieran explaining the reasons for his choice of wearing only a blanket and why he declared himself a political prisoner..."The British government have declared war in this country and there is a war going on in this country. We believe we are in there [prison] for political reasons".

The video is from 27th of October 1980.

PS: You may need to listen to the video more than once as Kieran's accent is not so easy! ;)

Kieran Nugent died on 4 May 2000 from a heart attack.

Difficult to find, fantastic to see (and shoot)

This was one of the farthest mural I went to...I guess I walked more than 10 km for arriving there...the map that I had was great to give indications where you could find murals, but very poor in terms of real representation of distances and names of the minor roads...so I found myself searching for the murals in this area with no real map, no too many people around to whom I could ask and...well no real news, under the rain...

Today, when I was doing research on internet regarding this mural (also very poor information on-line...:( ).....I found out that I was actually wander around in the Ballymurphy area, famous for the massacre of the 9th of August 1971. When I said that now West Belfast is a much calmer area where it is possible to go...that it is....I am now shocked by thinking that in those quiet roads a civil war was happening 40 years ago....

Lenadoon Avenue, Ballymurphy, Belfast 2015

In this mural we find a mythological theme: the central figure of the mural is dying warrior Cú Chulainn. The four circles represents the shields of four province of Ireland.
 
The mural commemorates the IRA members from local area who have been killed, whose portraits and names are reported.

left:
Tony Henderson: the first member of the I.R.A. 1st Battalion to die on active service in 1971 aged 21.
John Finucane, Tony Jordan: killed in a car crash in the Falls Road, Belfast, in 1972 while in active service for IRA.
Brendan O'Callaghan: shot dead by the British Army while in a car park in the Stewardstown area of Belfast, 1977.
Joseph (Joe) McDonnell: died in the 1981 hunger strike.
right:
Laura Crawford: died when a bomb that she was carrying exploded prematurely, 1975
Mairead Farrell: shot dead in Gibraltar by the English Special Air Service (SAS), in 1988. 
Patricia Black: died when an improvised explosive device she was carrying detonated prematurely near London, 1991.
Bridie Quinn: died in 1988.

The mural was first painted in 1996.

No freedom until women's freedom

Beechmount Avenue, Belfast 2015

This mural was painted on 2014 for celebrating the 100 year anniversary (“céad bliain”) of the Cumann na mBan (League of Women), constituted on the 2nd of April 1914.

The role of the group was very important during the Easter Rising of 1916 when the members were involved in the occupation of several places.

The main figure in the mural is Countess Markievicz, an Irish politician, member of the IRA. During the Rising in Dublin, she occupied Stephen's Green for the six days of the Rebellion.

In December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, and from 1919 and 1922 she was also one of the first women in the world to hold a cabinet position (Minister of the Labour for the Irish Republic).

See some old photos of the women of Cumann na mBan here. More info on the mural (of this and of others in Belfast) can be found in the blog of Extramural Activity.

In the mural “Cnamb” stands for Cumann na mBan and “Ní saoirse go saoirse na mban” in Irish means No freedom until women's freedom.

The Ballymurphy Massacre

Massacres leave deep scars in the victims' families but also in the entire society.

Each country unfortunately has its own.

As Italian, I am thinking to the Ustica Massacre on the 27th of June 1980, to the Bologna Massacre of the 2nd of August 1980 ...

And also Northern Ireland has its own....

The Ballymurphy Massacre began on the morning of Monday 9 August 1971. On that day the British Government introduced the so-called Interment Without Trial, within the Operation Demetrius: the plan was to arrest and imprison without charge or trial anyone suspected to belong to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In a period on three days, 600 British soldiers entered the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast and hundreds of people were taken, most of them innocent, unarmed civilians. 11 of them were killed during these three days by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment. Amongst them, there was a 45 year old mother of eight children.

According to the families of the victims no investigations were carried out and no member of the British Army was held to account.

The same regiment went months later in Derry (30 January 1972) and it is considered responsible of similar events, known as Bloody Sunday killings.



Divis Street, Belfast 2015

The Ballymurphy Massacre 

Royal Television Society Award Winning Documentary 2013
FFresh Best Documentary 2013
NAHEMI Best in Festival 2013

Five friends, died for the same ideal

Divis Street, Belfast 2015



Danny McAreavey, IRA member, shot dead by British soldiers on 6 October 1972
Joe McKinney, IRA member, died on 10 October 1972 when a bomb that he was assembling exploded prematurely
Jimmy Quigley, IRA member, shot dead by British soldiers on 29 September 1972
John Donaghy, died on 10 October 1972 when a bomb that he was assembling exploded prematurely
Patrick Maguire (real name Patrick Pendleton), died on 10 October 1972 when a bomb that he was assembling exploded prematurely.

The Mother
by Padraic Pearse


           I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
           My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow---And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.

Kieran Nugent, the first Blanketman

Someone told me that the plan of a trip at the beginning, and all what follows a trip (photos, stories, presents to friends and family..etc..in my case also this blog) become part of the trip itself and enhance its beauty...

What I am loving of this "extended-trip" is also the new things that I am learning...

In this case about the late history of Northern Ireland and of The Troubles, 30 years of conflicts (starting in the late 1960s) between the Irish republicans who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland and were mostly of catholic religion, and the Unionist/loyalist, mostly protestants, who considered themselves British and wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom. Another reason of the conflicts was also the discrimination in area such as housing, employment, policing, and electoral procedures, performed by the Unionist majority against the republican minority.

Several Republicans were imprisoned because of Troubles-related offences, and in 1972 after an hunger strike by some of them in Belfast Prison, the "Special Category Status" was introduced. This status granted some privileges to republican prisoners, such as the possibility of extra food and visits, and the exemption from wearing prison uniforms or doing prison work.

However, in January 1975, within a process also known as 'criminalisation policy', the British Government revised the SCS and decided to consider all the political prisoners arrested after the 1st of January 1976 as 'criminals', which meant to wear a prison uniform, do prison work and serve their sentence in the new Maze Prison, after know as H-Blocks.

The first prisoner sentenced after the 1st January 1976 was Kieran Nugent, that refused to wear the prison uniform declaring himself as political prisoner and not criminal. He then covered himself with the blanket of his prison bed. This passive protest was then taken as example by other prisoners and by 1978 nearly 300 Irish republicans were refusing to wear uniform.    

The blanket protest ended in 1981 after ten republican prisoners starved to death during an hunger strike. After this, the "political privileges" were gradually inserted again.  

But who was Kieran Nugent?

In 1976 Kieran was an 18 year old volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who was sentenced three years imprisonment for possessing weapons and hijacking a vehicle....
  

Divis Street, Belfast, 2015

"I was brought straight to the blocks. Cell 17, D wing H1 or 2. I was stripped and beaten. The screws who knew me said, 'We are the bosses now. There are no OCs here'. A screw said to me, 'What size are you in the waist and what size are you for shoes?' I asked him 'What for?' and he told me 'For a uniform'. I said, 'You have got to be joking'. I was the only one in the H-Blocks. They dragged me into the cell. Davy Long [one of the warders] wanted me to compromise. He suggested I wore my own shoes and trousers if I wore a prison shirt. I just laughed. He locked the door. I lay on the floor all night without mattress, blankets or anything else. The heat was reasonable in all fairness and I slept"

(The Provisional IRA, pp. 349–350)

Nugent was given a blanket on the second day of his imprisonment.

The Belfast Murals #1

Hello!

back to work, back to normal life, back to ..no time! ;(

So, I have already said here that the Murals are the touristic attraction of West Belfast.

They illustrate the Irish political passions, starting from the beginning of the XX century, whether driven by republican ideals or by the will to continue to be part of the United Kingdom.

The easiest way to see them is to take one of the famous black taxi tour: a guy will drive you around - I guess - to the most famous murals and tell you probably the stories of each of those....

but....we do not like the easy way...do we? ;)....and anyway, for one person I think that the price would have been quite high..and, actually the biggest problem, I would not have had all the time needed for the photos..

So let's start a Murals hunt! :)

If you want to play as I did...be ready to do a lot of kilometres, but most important get the treasure map and the description of the treasure!! :)

To find the map you have to be already lucky, as at the central Tourist Information they did not neither know the existence...but Lonely Planet could not get wrong, so I found it at the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, Ireland's best known Irish language and culture centre....the map reports only the republican murals, but it is enough to begin the game! ;).... PS: thanks to Gerard, at the culture centre, just an optimal example of the kindness of the Irish people! :)

You can find the guide at the Irish Republican History Museum...museums are not really my passion, and I was too much in a hurry for enjoying it properly, but if you are looking for republican past memories you are at the right place! :)

Ok,...I will continue to tell you more in the next posts...

Now just enjoy the my beginning! :)

Falls Road, Belfast 2015

Falls Road, Belfast 2015
PS: I like to think at this photo as the "Missing Mural"

...eeehhiii ;)...you may find interesting also this link http://visitwestbelfast.com/ and their facebook page