Ireland

On Feb 18 2007 Tracey and I set off in the morning to go to Ireland. Caught the tube from her place to Heathrow and caught an very late Aerlingus flight to Dublin. (ok, I apologise now for dodgy spelling, I am on a really dodgy keyboard), then it was off to explore the place that is Dublin.

Dublin, is an older town than I thought, but despite its buildings being mostly grey (and maybe because the weather was quite grey) it was still a lovely town to walk around. Where we saw the Liffey River, Ha Penny Bridge, Temple Bar and a Church (one of several) which was built/established in 1030, and extends across a road, so they have built a bridge to get from one side to the other. We then had dinner at O'Sheas up the road from our Hostel (a huge roast beef) and then off to bed. Not before I have words with someone who doesn't understand the ethics of Hostel TV (my family are laughing at me now, most probably dad, as he has experienced me and my TV control before) but, she sat down grabbed the remote and just changed the channel with no consultation, so I asked for it to be changed back. And it was, but sheesh she didn't like me saying something, but you can't just change it, one must ask. Ok, so Ireland ...

Monday morning we started our tour, with Phil our crazy Irish driver. We travelled out of Dublin and on towards St Peter's Cathedral where we saw the preserved head of Sir Oliver Plunkett who was charged with consipring against the state, and he was found guitly, his penatly - to be hung drawn and quartered. And what we saw of him, was a very black chared head where you could see that his spine had been ripped off at the base of his neck, pretty gross but still a site to see. Sorry no photos of that. Onto Ireland's biggest free standing cletic cross, which is near the Battle of Boyne fields, this battle really stands out for the Catholics and Prostentants it was the War where William of Orange (the orgin of the Orange Colour representing the Protestants) fought for Ireland to be free from the British in 1690, mean while I do not remember all these details from my trip, I am googling it as I type to get the tid bits that I remember right. Then off to Derry.

Derry as called by the locals, but sign posted as Londonderry, and on the signs the London is graffitied to simply say Derry, as the Protestants want it known simply as Derry. Derry has a wall built by the Protestants (during 1613-1619) to keep the Catholics out of the city centre - its still in pretty good nick too. We had a tour along this wall where we had a local give us a walk and talk about the wall and its history and purpose, finishing off at the site of Bloody Sunday, in this area there are powerful murals painted on the walls of the sides of houses, depicting the suffering over the years of the people of derry. From the hunger strikes to how the locals used to warn of british soldiers in the area - they banged their rubbish tin lids with sticks to warn the locals to protect their homes.

Interestingly the "probritish" show their pride/territory by painting their kerbs red, white and blue in line with the British Flag. And we also found out along the way, that when the Irish Army fold their flag they must not let the orange and green touch, as these represent the catholics and protestants and the white symbolising peace which is the element which will one day unite Ireland again.

That night, we as a group went to a pub with a very Irish name which I now forget, and had some dinner and drinks, we were told that there was music that night, which there was but it started at 11pm. I stayed a little while, but ended up going to bed.

Tuesday morning, we set off in the crazy bus again, let me just say that our bus driver, though very good at his knowledge sometimes was too absorbed in talking rather than driving, so there were a few moments, where a couple of "Jesus, Mother, Mary and Josephs" came out of our drivers mouth and other comical excerpts came out of his mouth. And the suspension on the bus meant that we were rocking side to side with his swerving. But nothing went wrong with the driving the whole time, so we were fine.

But Tuesday - We left Derry and travelled East along the coast of Ireland where we saw Giants Causeway - a geological marvel and Ireland's most vistited natural attraction. The tale goes, that a Giant from Ireland fell in love with a Giant on Scotland and he built a bridge across to bring her back to Ireland as he couldn't swim, he brought her back, but she knew she would be followed, so they made an evil plan to trick the person from Scotland who followed her. It worked, but the Giant from Scotland was peeved on the way back so he destroyed the bridge on his way back, leaving what we see today. But the science of it all is that a volcano errupted and caused the rock that is there - Basalt to form into long colums of hexagons when it cooled - I like the tale better. But, alas, as technolgoy goes, my camera was being perverse and wouldn't zoom, so I have really crappy shots of the place.

Then off the Dunluce Castle, where the McDonnells lived, and one evening were serving a lovely banquet, and a servant walked in and said, that the banquet could not continue as the kitchen and 16 of the staff had just fallen into the ocean - this is actually true as seeing the ruins of it now, it was built too close to the cliff and is still suffering slides to this day. Very picturesque. Then lunch in yet another Irish pub and off to Belfast.

We arrived in Belfast at late afternoon, so we unpacked, and lounged around until 7pm and went off to find a place for dinner. We found a place and just missed the dinner call as we had deviated to a pub on the way to dinner as well - when in Ireland ... so we went across the road and had some pretty average food and then back to our pub we found. Where a football (soccer) match had just ended and a quiz night was beginning, so I had a lovely night drinking Irish Cider -Magners and answering questions which we hardly knew anything about, lucky we had 2 locals with us on the trip and they could help us out, but sadly we came 15th.

Belfast Wednesday morning - Went on a black cab tour around Belfast where we first stopped in Shankill a very protestant area where murals are painted on the walls of their fights, one mural is very famous. Of a balaclava clad man with a M16 pointed at the centre of the area and whereever you walk he follows you, very clever artistry, but also quite spooky. Other murals depict other people who have died for the cause, but some more modern ones are depicting heros who killed people and are now considered maytrs for their cause.

These areas in belfast are still seperated into religious zones where walls are built to seperate them, and are gated, these gates close at 6:30pm and don't open again till 6am in the morning and are closed permanetly from Friday evening until Monday morning. And one wall is recently being up graded its called the peace wall, but it is this huge monstrosity which is about 20 feet high and solid. We were given the opportunity to write messages on the wall, I couldn't think of much at the time, so I wrote the boring thing of my name and country.

That was belfast, we then had an hour or 3 to kill before we went back to Dublin, where we walked around the city centre of Belfast, considered quite safe, just the outer regions are where you don't go wondering. We saw the Europa Hotel which has been bombed 14 times and shopped in the city centre. Then back to Dublin on the bus, the trip went fast as most of us slept. That night, Tracey and I had a quiet night of dinner and then more TV in the hostel common room, no more TV ethic debates though.

Thursday we wondered - 6 of us from the trip to the Guiness Storehouse where we paid our 14 euros and did the 7 floor self guided tour of the Guiness factory. It was great you get given a guiness pebble which is a 5cm round piece of clear PVC with a drop of guiness in it as your ticket, which also gives you a free pint on the 7th floor. Went through and read everything about Arthur Guiness and his product.

Interesting facts; Art Guiness took up a 9000 year lease on his site, now theres self assurance in your product; the pelican is the original symbol for guiness as he could hold more in his mouth than he could in his stomach - 7 guiness, one for each day of the week, the Guiness book of records was actually started by the guiness clan as the manager at that stage was interested in having a book of world records, as he wanted to know the fastest bird in the world and it went from there. Ahhh the pint went down pretty well at the top, but alas I didn't finish it as I hadn't had much to eat and was feeling the effects quite quickly. So I only had half.

Then back to meet Tracey and shop a little for souveniours. Then off to the airport, which was a delima in itself, note to all, if you go to Dublin airport, give yourself more than your recommended hour as they haven't coped with all the new security needs and it takes forever. We bolted in our socks from the security gates to our plane and got there with about 3 mins to spare. Then home to London and reality - I have spent the last 2 days as a Hermit Crab reading and doing nothing as I had such a huge week. But I loved it and am going back to do southern Ireland real soon.