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| Northern Ireland, May 2003 |
| Monday morning saw me trudging through the streets of Dublin, backpack on, trying to find the pick up point for the tour... I spied another backpack ahead of me, who also seemed confused so took the chance she was on the same tour. Well she was, and we waited uncertainly together for the bus... always better than being on your own! We got on the bus to find ourselves amongst a whole heap of teachers from OZ, NZ and Canada - all living in London! What a boring mob! And only 2 guys to boot! Not great odds there... On the way to Galway, we stopped off at a Whiskey distillery - nothing like a whiskey at 10am! |
| Galway was beautiful but it was raining and we only had a half hour there until we had to meet up with the other half of the tour.. So we headed straight to a pub for our first pint of Guinness for the tour - and I must say, Galway has the best Guiness of all! Even went to the Guinness factory and it wasn't as good there! |
| We stopped in Westport for the night and drank at Mick Molloys pub... he is a well known musician but wasn't playing. They still had music there - they sit at a table and just play so it is quite intimate (although the pub was absolutely packed... |
| The next day we stopped in Donegal for lunch. It was a beautiful day for a stroll around town. Of course we saw plenty on the way - stopped off at Queen Maeves tomb, scaled the walls of a fort... and plenty more I can't remember!!!!!!!! |
| Donegal Castle |
| We got to Derry on the eve of the 2nd day... Northern Ireland at last. It was quite an eye opener with cameras, barbed wire around the police station and watch towers dotting the city. We had a HUGE night in Derry and ended up at a bar with a crooner singing fantastic show songs. Crawled out of bed the next morning feeling a bit gloopy but managed to perk up enough for a walk of the walled city where we learned the history of Derry. We went down into Bogsite where a lot of the troubles have been and is the site of Bloody Sunday. Very moving and a totally different world. |
| We went on to see WB Yeates' grave and memorial - carved into the slate on the ground is a beautiful piece of prose, I must find it and add it to this page... We stopped off at the Giants Causeway and heard the brilliant story of Finn McCool. The Giants Causeway's tesselated rocks stretch under the ocean all the way to Scotland and can be seen from Scotland as well... |
| We headed into Belfast that night and padded down at the hostel before heading off on the town to check out the local talent...a good thing about Ireland is that it doesn't matter what night of the week you go out, somewhere is always pumping. |
| The next morning, we headed out on the black taxi tour of Dublin. The taxi drivers act as tour operators and take you to all the troubled spots and teach you the history - we had both protestant and catholic drivers to give us a fair view. |
| Below is a photo of a mural in the protestant section of town. It is commemorating Oliver Cromwell and shows how antagonistic these murals can be. In the left hand corner it says: "Catholocism is more than a religion, it is a political power. Therefore I am led to believe there will be no peace in Ireland until the catholic church is crushed." We went along then to the peace wall which separates Catholic and Protestant sections. You can see the wire fence on top in the picture below - that was added last year to protect the houses behind it from people throwing rocks/petrol bombs over. The wall has protestant murals all along - these ones are not antagonistic however. Tourists are invited to comment on the wall hence all the graffiti. Back to Dublin that night... but that's a different story! |
| Shelly and I on our night out in Derry |
| The entrance to Bogsite with the famous mural of the boy with the petrol bomb.. |
| WB Yeates' memorial |
| Giant's Causeway |
| The 'safe' plastic bullets used for crowd control - so far have killed 18 people |
| Oliver Cromwell mural in Shankill Rd |
| The Peace Wall separating the Protestant and Catholic sections |
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| and some of the Republic |