Originally Posted by
lwildernorva
For a big city experience, Northern Ireland is definitely no joy. I spent two nights in Belfast and although I could see the steps taken to bring the city forward from the issues raised during The Troubles, I found the center of the city to be too tame compared to Dublin. I very much enjoyed my visit to the Titanic Museum and suspect that with the popularity of Game of Thrones, a studio tour, surprisingly not offered as recently as April 2015, will eventually become a hot attraction.
But beyond Belfast was an entirely different story. Coastal scenery to match anything in Ireland and Scotland. Even before the Euro vote, a sense that the folks there are ready to reunite with Ireland. And although I didn't stop in Derry, it looked like a neat little town perched on a plateau. I didn't go to Northern Ireland until 2010 but have now gone three times with plans to return in 2017.
Definitely a place, outside of Belfast, that is resistant to the use of points, however, and as iahphx and others with families have discovered, expensive for accommodations.
Purely out of accuracy and for no other reason opinion polls have consistently shown that neither people from Northern Ireland or Ireland have a stomach for a united Ireland,despite what some politicians would have you believe.
In recent years, polls held separately by the BBC and the Belfast Telegraph showed fewer than one in five people in the North would vote now for unity.
Last year there was a poll for a joint programme on Irish and British TV
The survey of more than 2,000 people found 13 per cent of Northern Ireland people favoured unity, with the figure at 36 per cent in the South.
More importantly,perhaps,a majority of CATHOLICS in the North voted against the idea of unification.
But you are right on another matter - away from the cities it is a beautiful country.