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Bob and Jane's Excellent Adventure

Monthly Archives: August 2016

Northern Ireland: The Conflict Continues

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Jane R Hendrickson in Travel

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While we only spent a few days in Northern Ireland we learned a lot and found it very emotional.  Somehow I had thought the conflict between Northern Ireland, Ireland and British Rule had ended. Boy, was I wrong!

Although the name of the city Londonderry/Derry  is still controversial, we never once heard anyone call it anything but Derry.  We would only have two nights and one day there.  I had read that Derry is the only completely walled city in Ireland. It was built in the very early 1600’s (although earliest historical references to Derry date back as far as the sixth century) and the top of the wall is a walkway that provides amazing views of the city.

Walking the wall of Derry
Walking the wall of Derry
View of Derry from the top of the wall
View of Derry from the top of the wall

In its entirety it’s about a mile and half around. Our hotel was just inside one of the four original gates to the city that still exist.  The clerk at the hotel had told us to walk the walls counterclockwise so we’d be going downhill far more than uphill. Along the wall there are historical markers explaining the city’s history.   We found it interesting that one time the wall was protecting the Protestants (on the inside) from the Jacobites (those who supported James II of England who was a Catholic). Then later the wall served to protect the Catholics (on the inside) from the Protestants (when Henry VIII wanted to abolish everything Catholic). Toward the end of the walk along the wall we came to the murals.

We had learned during our time in Dublin and in Galway that in December of 1918 the Irish republican party Sinn Fein had won a huge victory in the election and formed their own government declaring independence from Great Britain. Violence and war ensued until July 1921 when a truce was reached that resulted in 26 counties of southern Ireland becoming a free Irish independent state and six counties in northeastern Ireland remaining part of the dominion thus creating Northern Ireland.  But even after the truce was reached, violence continued between the loyalists (usually Protestants) and the republicans (usually Catholics). For most of the twentieth century Catholics were discriminated against throughout Northern Ireland. Bob and I remembered how the violence of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s was covered in the US news. That period is referred to by the Irish as “The Troubles.”  The Catholic working class neighborhood in Derry, just outside the wall, is called Bogside. Much of this has since been torn down.  The  Protestant working class neighborhood just across the River Foyle was called Waterside.

The first sign we came to was perhaps the most powerful. IMG_0081The murals that follow had an emotional impact that is hard to describe.  They’re beautiful and very moving.  They speak for themselves.

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We left Derry feeling changed by the experience.  The next day we took the train to Belfast.

We were looking forward to the train trip from Derry to Belfast as Michael Palin has described the first part of the trip from Derry to Coleraine as one of the most beautiful train trips in the world.  I don’t know if it was because it was a dreary day or because we’ve seen so much gorgeous scenery in Ireland and the UK but it didn’t seem anything out of the ordinary to us. In both Derry and Belfast we’ve stayed in hotels near the city center.  It makes the sights accessible to us but we’ve found that living out of our suitcases and packing up every couple of days is not something either of us relish.

When we arrive in a big city we usually select a Hop On Hop Off bus tour.  While we prefer the ones that have live tour guides instead of audio ones we find that in either case the tour gives us a short overview of the city, provides us with a bit of city history and lore and helps us identify which sights we want to visit close up.

Getting off the tour bus we almost immediately came upon the Gay Pride Parade.

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I can’t help but wonder if perhaps all the sectarian conflict doesn’t help people become more tolerant of other differences!

The contrast between Derry and Belfast is amazing.  In Derry I had felt that even though there were signs saying “One Ireland” or “The Fight Must Go On”

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that what we were living was more philosophical than alive.  This changed when we arrived in Belfast. While we both love the city the underlying tension that we felt was immediate.

We had read about Black Taxis and that was at the top of our Must Do List.  Black Taxis tours are individual tours with drivers who all have personal connections to The Troubles but try to provide an unbiased viewpoint of the conflict. Joe, our driver, was wonderful.  He drove us through both the Catholic and the Protestant neighborhoods where he would stop periodically, climb in the back seat with us and explain what had happened at that particular site.  Perhaps most moving is the wall that divides the Catholic and the Protestant neighborhoods. IMG_0220Joe explained that although the violence has pretty much ended the wall provides safety for both sides.And rather than separate the two sides it allows them to live together. There’s graffiti along much of the wall and we could see how the wall had been heightened several times.  Joe said it was because each time it was extended, people could still find a way to throw things over the top. In one place we saw how screening had been added to the back of houses that bordered the wall to add further protection. IMG_0224He went on to explain while driving through the Protestant neighborhood that if he weren’t driving the taxi he wouldn’t feel safe being there.  He told us he lives in an integrated neighborhood and that has made all the difference for his kids.  In the city he added they can go to pubs with their friends, Catholic and Protestant alike.  He explained that the integrated schools have made a huge difference.  And that he was surprised when his kids told him that their Protestant classmates like rugby, which is traditionally a Catholic game while futbol (soccer) is traditionally a Protestant game. Putting kids together seems to be the best way of ending prejudice of any kind.  Where to build the schools was a major decision since Catholic parents didn’t want their kids to go to school in the Protestant neighborhood and vice versa so the schools were placed in integrated neighborhoods.  I’m not sure this was ever a consideration in the US when in 1955 separate but equal was determined to be unconstitutional.  There were murals with a loyalist (mostly Protestant) slant to them. The Ulster Defence Association (UFFDA) was one in particular. The UFFDA was a loyalist vigilante group whose goal was to defend Ulster Protestant loyalist areas.  They were responsible for 400 deaths, mostly Catholics killed at random in retaliation for IRA attacks.IMG_0207   Some signs and murals reflected the nationalist (mostly Catholic) point of view.

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(We learned that the H&W ship building company, which built the Titantic, wouldn’t hire Catholic workers). There was also a huge mural of Bobby Sands who died in prison after a 66 day hunger strike when he was 27.

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When he died widespread protests occurred around the world.  There are murals of hope and peace as well as murals that represent conflicts from around the world.

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We went past the Europa Hotel, a hotel where journalists and dignitaries stay, which has the reputation of being the most bombed hotel in Europe having been bombed nearly 30 times during The Troubles. IMG_0180The nationalists said that while it was never their intention to destroy the hotel, it showed the government they could if they wanted to. Before our tour with Joe we had no idea that the tension was still so great.  As our tour drew to a close Joe told us about a march that was going to occur the next day. IMG_0246The nationalists had petitioned to march to the courthouse protesting the continued internment of political prisoners without charges.  For whatever reason the request had been denied and the group had been told to terminate the march several blocks short of the destination.  (Yet just a few weeks earlier, on July 12, the Orangemen had been allowed to hold their annual march to City Hall.) So the next morning Bob and I trekked down the street just a few blocks from our hotel.  When we arrived in late morning we saw a few police cars.  These were no ordinary police cars; these were armored Land Rovers. Over the next hour and a half more and more of these vehicles continued to appear, many of the police attired in riot gear.

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Finally we could hear the marchers approaching and see a bit of the flags and signs.  All ended peacefully a short while later. It’s still unclear to us why the marchers were denied their request to march all the way to city center.

After our taxi ride we decided to also tour the Crumlin Road Jail. This is the jail that was in use from 1846 to 1996.

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During its 150 year history children, women (among them suffragettes) and many political prisoners were held here. There were a few cells with artwork the prisoners had created. Prisoners from the two sides were held in separate wings of the prison. I continue to wonder if the guards wouldn’t find it difficult not to show personal bias toward one side or the other.  We saw the tunnel that led directly from the jail to the courthouse. It is in this jail that 1981 Hunger Strike occurred and became a showdown between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the prisoners.  Bobby Sands was an elected member of Parliament and when he died after day 66, more than 100000 people lined his funeral route.

We decided before leaving Belfast we wanted to tour the new Titanic Museum. The museum is eight stories high and visitors follow a trail of the design, building and launching of the great ship as well as its legacy.

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Although we had only had six days in Northern Ireland what an extraordinary six days they had been.  We both love Northern Ireland and hope to return one day. And we left with lots to sort out in our thinking!

We had reservations on the Stena Ferry for the two hour crossing of the Irish Sea to IMG_20160809_104433Cairnryan, Scotland and once again lucked out with the weather.  It was another nice day and the sea was calm. Upon arriving in Scotland we boarded a coach for Ayr. This we had read was a Scottish west coast resort city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Galway Bay…just as I pictured it!

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Jane R Hendrickson in Living Abroad, Retirement, Seeing the World, Senior Travel, Travel

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Whenever we told people that we were going to spend three weeks in Galway, the response was always the same, “You’re going to love Galway!” It’s so pretty and the people are so friendly! And they were right!

Public transportation makes it really easy to get around the Ireland.  We took a train from Dublin to Galway.  It only took a little more than 2 hours and cost $55 for the two of us. Then we got a taxi from the train station to our new apartment.  IMG_20160716_180427The owner met us there, which I especially like because she provides us with details about how things work and we also get a chance to ask questions. One of the best parts of the Galway apartment was that it had a piano!  I hadn’t played one since we left Big Rapids in early January! Off we went in search of a music store to get a piano book. While there we found Irish whistles and I realized this was a must have for our oldest granddaughter!

Galway was founded in the early 1200’s by the Anglo Normans who built a wall around the city.  This medieval wall still exists in some places.  Part of it is built into the Eyre Square Shopping Center and the Spanish Arch still stands although this part was added later in the 16th century.  The Claddagh, which means stony shore in Gaelic, is the area  just outside the wall where the Corrib River meets Galway Bay.  There are lovely places throughout the city to stroll along the river.

The Claddagh
The Claddagh
Part of Medieval Wall inside Eyre Square Shopping Center
Part of Medieval Wall inside Eyre Square Shopping Center
Spanish Arch
Spanish Arch
Views from the walk along the Corrib River.
Views from the walk along the Corrib River.
The Corrib River, the shortest river in Europe
The Corrib River, the shortest river in Europe
Bridge across the Corrib
Bridge across the Corrib

One of my favorite parts of Ireland is the music so when a friend said we had to go to the Western Hotel (http://westernhotelgalway.ie/) to listen to their traditional music, we went. In this small hotel bar, a few locals who played fiddles, Irish whistles, drums, concertinas, even a portable harp, began to gather and as the night went on more and more musicians joined the group.

Local Musicians at the Western Hotel
Local Musicians at the Western Hotel
Portable Harp
Portable Harp

The audience also seemed to be mostly locals. The place was packed…standing room only. At one point a young man, probably about eight or nine went to the front and began to step dance. Everyone loved it and Grandpa, who was standing in front of us, was especially proud! There were two older guys sitting next to us, one with an obvious American accent. Bob asked where he was from.  “I’m from here,” was the response he got. The guy said when his kids were grown, he and his wife were trying to decide where they wanted to live and because his wife had an Irish passport, they decided to move to Galway. That was a decade ago.

When we booked our stay in Galway we didn’t realize that we were going to be there during the Galway Festival.  The streets were mobbed (and we met more Americans than we have in total during our five months in Europe). I love the street performers! And everywhere we looked they appeared. My favorites were the violinist who played wonderfully and had made a puppet who played in sync. (A note on the puppet said that the violinist had made him!)  And then further down the street we encountered another violinist.  This time he was a tightrope walker…playing as he walked!

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Because we don’t have a car we decided it was important to check out day trips so we could see some of the spectacular scenery that surrounds us. We have found that local tourist information centers give us a lot of insight into the area we’re visiting.   A must do was the Cliffs of Mohr. We had never taken an organized tour but this one looked really interesting and it was reasonably priced. This tour was especially nice because they picked passengers up at various stops around the city. We were told they could pick us at at the Supervalu right near our apartment.  The coach was comfortable and we had an entertaining driver who added little interesting tidbits throughout the day.  He could field our questions and also knew how to keep 50 people on schedule.  He said early on in the trip that he would announce how many minutes we had at each stop and if you were late you would get to sing!  When a woman and her two children were late getting on after our first stop, he invited them to sing (and they subsequently sang Happy Birthday, VERY quietly).   It is important to note, however, that the son, who was probably 13, was appalled at their singing so later on in the tour he invited the group to join him in a fabulous rendition of “We Will Rock You!”  Most of us, however, lacked that talent so we all made sure we returned at the appointed hour!

We stopped for lunch at a pub in the little village of Doolin which looked like something out of an novel.This was a great call on the part of the driver/tour guide. It allowed us to avoid the mobs of people (as well as the prices) of the coffee shops at the Cliffs of Mohr and allowed us time to meander through some of the village shops. The Cliffs are located in the Burren National Park, IMG_0585 (2)a barren landscape where the hills are made of carboniferous limestone. While the focal point of the tour was the Cliffs we stopped at several places along the way including Dunguaire Castle, once home to a sixteenth century king. We also stopped at Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb, which dates back to 2500 BC and just further down the road, we came to Poulnabrone Bolmen which was built about 5800 years ago making it older than the Pyramids and far earlier than Stonehenge that had fascinated us just a few weeks earlier. We also stopped at Kilfenora Cathedral with its many Celtic Crosses. Kilfenora was a sixth century monastery .

Poulnabrone Bolmen (dating to before the Pyramids)
Poulnabrone Bolmen (dating to before the Pyramids)
Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb
Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb
Kilfenora Cathedral with Celtic Crosses
Kilfenora Cathedral with Celtic Crosses
Dunguaire Castle
Dunguaire Castle

And from our bus we saw mile after mile of stone fences. These fences were constructed from the stones that lay in farmers fields and are constructed without any adhesive.  Our drive told us these are called “hay penny walls” because workers were paid a half penny a day for their toil.

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Hay penny rock wall extending up the hillside

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More rock walls

They are omnipresent but we never tired of seeing them. The Cliffs themselves are over 700 feet high and stretch for more than 5 miles along the western Atlantic coast of Ireland.PANO_20160720_144526 We were incredibly lucky to have a sunny day for our trip. We felt as though we could see forever! We returned to Galway via The Wild Way of the Atlantic with its narrow winding road along the sea.

IMG_0590 At one point the driver told us he was going to quit talking so he could concentrate on the road.  Great idea!

As we traveled throughout Ireland we saw sheep, sheep and more sheep. While some sheep were kept within the brick walls, most seemed to wander free range including often on the highway! The color markings indicate who the owner is.  Now that we’re in early August we see that most sheep have recently been sheared. This is a really big deal in Ireland and Scotland where the sheep’s wool is a big product.  I read online where a Donegal man set a record shearing 731 ewes in 9 hours.  He averaged 96.33 lambs an hour or one lamb every 37.37 seconds. Wow!  Who knew?

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We’ve had a bit more rain here than we’ve experienced elsewhere. Bob says the percentages of rain in the forecast here don’t mean the chances of rain but instead refer to the percent of the day it’s going to rain! So now I carry our rain hats, two umbrellas and our slickers in my daypack just as a matter of habit no matter how sunny it is when we venture out! One of the tour guides told us that trees in Ireland grow three times as fast because of the rain and the mild temperatures.  I was amazed by the number of mountain ash trees.  They are so beautiful!  And the fuchsias! IMG_0670 They grow wild among the hedgerow. I always thought my fuchsias in their pots were lovely but in the UK and Ireland they’re bushes!  So spectacular! Obviously the climate has its advantages.

We walked from our apartment out to Salt Hill, an area just south of our apartment, located right on the sea. The first time we did this is it was very foggy but still lovely.  Later we went again and it was clear and warm with folks swimming in the North Atlantic. Two very different places. We had tickets for the Trad on the Prom.  Trad refers to traditional music and the Prom is the promenade that extends from Galway out to Salt Hill. IMG_0402 The music and dance were wonderful!  It was an extremely warm day and one of the performers explained that this was the warmest day in 400 years. Obviously, sunny warm days are a rarity in Ireland.

Churches are all beginning to look the same to us. But we did tour the St. Nicholas Cathedral, the church where supposedly Christopher Columbus worshiped in the 1400’s. On the floor there are tombs with engravings indicating the person’s profession… i.e. goldsmith indicated by crowns and hammers; sheep shearer with a lead and shears. If you look very closely you can see them in the photographs below.

Sheep shearer's shears to left and lead to right
Sheep shearer’s shears to left and lead to right
Goldsmith's hammers with crowns above
Goldsmith’s hammers with crowns above

We decided to take another bus tour. This time to Connemara. This area is primarily farmland but still near to the sea and it is known for the peat harvest. People have sections that they own and they go out and cut the rectangles of peat, let it dry and then use it for fuel in the winter.  We also saw many thatched roofed cottages and a man training his sheepdogs…had we been travelling independently by car I would have loved to stop there and learn more.

Thatched roof cottages
Thatched roof cottages
Fjords, pretty even in the rain
Fjords, pretty even in the rain
Peat drying for winter
Peat drying for winter

Kylemore Abbey was the primary destination on this tour and the rainy foggy weather made it even more beautiful in our estimation.  There was a prestigious girls school here that closed in the 1960’s. It was run by the Benedictine nuns who came here during World War I after their school had been destroyed in Ypres, Belgium.  Because we had visited Ypres a year ago and learned a lot of their history, we found this Abbey particularly interesting.

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Kylemore Abbey

On our way back from the Abbey we stopped in the little village of Cong.  This is where the movie, The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne was filmed. IMG_0731 Several people had mentioned this to us in the past few weeks. It was fun to see the statue of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara as well as the pub that is also in the movie.  One evening a few nights later we decided to watch the movie via our computer, Amazon Prime and Chromecast.  The scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed seeing places we had just visited, but the movie itself?  Oh my!  Did all movies in the early 50’s lack a plot? 

After three wonderful weeks in Galway we were ready to head to Northern Ireland. Unlike other places we’ve been, it’s not possible in Galway to purchase tickets from the tourist information office.  We had to go directly to the bus station. We knew we wanted to go to Derry/Londonderry next…which name you use depends on whether one is Republican (Derry) or Loyalist (Londonderry). When we inquired at the ticket office the clerk said, “Derry and Londonderry are two different places.”  Before I could figure out how to politely disagree, another man in the office corrected him.

On the morning of our departure we called a cab but inadvertently asked to go to the coach station.  As soon as we got out of the taxi I realized we were in the wrong place.  Luckily our bus station was a short walk away.  I now realize that coach and bus are not synonymous! But it was no big deal. We had plenty of time, got on our bus and headed across another national border.  This time to Northern Ireland!  Another currency change…leaving the Euro behind and returning to the pound! How did travelers ever manage just a few decades ago when they changed in every country?

Our bus stopped in Sligo, Ireland, we thought for a driver change. We got out to get a snack and imagine our surprise when we returned, only to realize it was a different bus. Unlike in England, passengers are responsible for lugging their suitcases from one bus storage to the next. Bob managed to grab our coats and my backpack off the coach, as well as our suitcases, while I went ahead and got us seats!  Just as I think I know what I’m doing we’re thrown another wrench! Next stop Derry!

 

 

 

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