” title=”Northern Ireland Coast by Deetrak, on Flickr”>, it has a wildly disproportionate number of fearless creatives and original thinkers. Yes, it is as far from “primitive affluence” as can be found. The land has few natural resources. Everything from coal to timber to iron has to be imported. For much of the year, the weather is cold and dank. And, for years, the region endured ethno-nationalist and sectarian strife. One rumor has it that when archeologists broke into King Tut's tomb they found a newspaper with the headline, “Irish Problems Still Unsolved.” The exceedingly carbonated era that began in 1969, known as The Troubles, ended with the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998, an accord that brought the Peace Dividend, a surge in cathexis with the land, and the beginnings of a surprising renaissance. </p>
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Yet, throughout its fractious history Northern Ireland has continued to unleash unreasonable creativity. The Kelvin scale was invented by a Belfastian; the ejection seat, portable defibrillator, modern tractor, the safety lamp for miners and chocolate milk by engineers from County Down. It could be argued distilled whiskey was concocted here, as the flush toilet. On the entrepreneurial side, Northern Ireland, despite its challenges, became the largest linen producer in the world. And had the largest ropeworks. It was the largest manufacturer of fizzy drinks; largest shirt maker; had the largest flax machine works; largest tobacco factory; largest handkerchief factory in the world. For a time, a century ago, it was the world's leading industrial city, anchored by the biggest shipyard in the world, and there it created the biggest man-made moving object in history: the ocean liner Titanic.<iframe allowfullscreen=)
” title=”Van Morrison in Belfast by Deetrak, on Flickr”>
” title=”Terry Hooley by Deetrak, on Flickr”>, and with a quick smile, up and down he bunts, like a kid on caffeine. — I make my way back to the Europa, once the most shelled hotel in the world, now a chic boutique. Along the way I pass the Albert Clock, which lists like the leaning tower of Pisa. It not only has the inclination, it has the time. And I take a stop at the storied Ulster Hall, the Grand Dame of Bedford Street, where if the walls could talk, they wouldn't talk, they would sing. Glenn Miller performed for American Troops stationed in Belfast preparing for the Normandy invasion of 1944 (a local saw at the time: The Americans are “oversexed, overpaid and over here; the Brits are undersexed, underpaid, and under Eisenhower); Paul Robeson bellowed Old Man River here. The Rolling Stones, in 1964, played their shortest set, 13 minutes, before hysterical fans broke up the show. Led Zeppelin debuted Stairway to Heaven here in 1971 to an unimpressed audience. The Clash were due to play in 1977, but when insurance was cancelled for the gig, hundreds of disappointed fans rioted. Terri Hooley said it may have been “the only riot of the Troubles where Catholics and Protestants were fighting on the same side.” — That evening its back to Waterfront Hall, this time for a concert celebrating the man who threw a net across the world with his poetry, Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winner who died in August 2013 at 74. His final message to the world, written in Latin just minutes before he passed: 'Noli timere', “Don't be afraid.”<iframe allowfullscreen=)
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” title=”Ken the Poet by Deetrak, on Flickr”>
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” title=”Lough Erne Resort by Deetrak, on Flickr”> — and Van soaked them up, mixed and fused them in his mind, and from them began to form his own inimitable sound. The ports of this land allow a heightened awareness of the rest of the world, an ability to witness, often firsthand, what is working and what is not on the global stage, and to behold the interconnectedness of all things. It allows Northern Irelanders a visionary perspective — to be able to skate to where the puck is going, not to where it's been. And then there is the weather. When there is constant comfort, such as in the tropic zones, there is, some theorize, little incentive to boldness, little inducement for the rage to master. Imaginations turn to ice. Yet here, the cold, the damp, the rain, they have conspired to ignite a creative “big bang” in Northern Ireland. <a href=)
” title=”Belfast Skyline by Deetrak, on Flickr”>
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