Day 35 Saturday 25 June 2016
Raining again. This morning we were given an insight into the political & social makeup of Northern Ireland & how history has shaped what the locals call “the troubles”. We have a very interesting local guide called Ronan, neither protestant nor catholic, his mother Chinese & father Irish, he is Buddhist, with a very Irish accent, he looks Chinese & a passion for what he talks about. He is brilliant the way he describes & explains the history & the significance of different places we see.
We enter the old walled city of Derry via Bishop’s Gate, rebuilt in 1789 after the earlier 1618 gate was demolished. We disembark & walk the short distance to the city wall battlements looking out over the city, there are lots of old original guns from the 19th century on display along the wall looking out over the new city. Up until fairly recently this area was a military barracks. There are still signs of discontent with murals & IRA slogans on some buildings. We walk past Royal Bastion where a 99 feet tall memorial pillar with statue was blown up by an IRA bomb in 1973. Our next stop is Butcher Gate, the former access to the old city by the butchers, where they slaughtered cattle & sold meat. This gate was also the site of an IRA bomb attack in 1973. We walk off the wall near Castle Gate into the old city itself & the old buildings seem to be revitalised & re-used, all appears very nice. We exit the old city through Shipquay Gate, more old cannons on the ramparts above & looking straight onto a very beautiful City Hall, more looking like a large church with stained glass windows than a City Hall. We finish our guided tour with Ronan outside the City Hall, very interesting.
Our next challenge is to walk across the Peace Bridge, built across the River Foyle to symbolically join the two halves of the city of Derry with Protestants on one side & Catholics on the other. The Peace Bridge is a great design with seeping bends & our walk across it is rather cold, there is a cold wind blowing down the river. A large group of runners is using the bridge as part of their Saturday morning fun run, in singlets & shorts mostly, I don’t know what we are sooking about. The City Hall Museum opens by the time we finish our Peace Bridge walk & inside it is decidedly warmer, with an interesting history of Derry & the relocation of Scottish & English settlers into Ireland & the displacement of the local Irish. There is also an absolutely beautifully carved marble statue of Queen Victoria in the foyer, damaged by another IRA bomb. Ironically, the man that planted the bomb later on in life stood for election to serve in the very place that he attacked. Across the road from the City Hall is the Peace Park with an eternal flame burning inside a glass case, the garden paths have concrete tiles inscribed with school children’s thoughts on peace.
We leave Derry & Northern Ireland around 10.30 am & drive south to Donegal, on Donegal Bay for our lunch stop. Our first visit is to the ruins of the Donegal Friary, founded in 1474, destroyed & rebuilt & destroyed again over the years, cemetery headstones surround the ruins on the shores of the Donegal River. Our next stop was Donegal Castle, built in the late 15th century & distinguished by square turrets on each of the corners, something I have not seen before. Our next stop was a more recent church with an unusual rounded bell tower, supposedly modelled on the many Viking round towers that were scattered around Ireland.
On the road again we stop at Belleek, the pottery factory after which the town was named. The Belleek factory was founded in 1857 & continues production on the same site to this day, employing more than 600 people. We were given a tour of the factory by a young Irish girl called Laureen, with a great Irish accent, showing us all the stages of production, including craftsmen/women working on different facets of the production. It was all very interesting & after the tour we took the opportunity to look through the museum & the gift shop. To our surprise the products were very reasonably priced given the amount of hand work that goes into the production of each item & the amount of time it takes from start to finish. There are some very nice pieces of porcelain that they make.
Our next stop was just outside Sligo at the church were the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats is buried. The church is old & simple, yet does have a very beautiful set of organ pipes above the door. Nearby is the ruins of an old round Viking watchtower. Our hotel tonight is in Sligo & the red carpet is rolled out – no, they are holding a wedding, we like to think the red carpet is for us. Dinner at the hotel is a 3 course buffet & is very tasty. More fellow travellers to have dinner with & another great day finished off nicely.
Ronan believes & hopes that it may not be the next generation but the one after or the one after that that there will not be animosity more between Catholics & Protestants & they will meet & even marry & love & live in peace – after all peace is what everyone wants. With tears in our eyes we wish them well.
Trekkin 