Derry Murals

In the 1990s and early 2000s, three Derry residents painted a series of murals in Bogside depicting scenes from The Troubles. Most of the slums in Bogside have been razed, but the end of this house with the famous phrase has been preserved. It dates from the Battle of Bogside in 1969, when citizens of the 'hood erected barricades and evicted the Royal Ulster Constabulary from the area.

This mural is titled Petrol Bomber.

Here's Bernadette Devlin. Devlin was elected to the UK parliament...at 21 the youngest MP...and also led protests against British rule and anti-Catholic discrimination. Protestant Ulster paramilitaries tried to assassinate her in 1981 and shot her seven times...despite the fact that her house was being guarded by British troops at the time. But she survived and remains civically active in Northern Ireland.

Bloody Sunday. Note the British soldier standing on a bloodstained civil rights banner.

Left mural is Motorman...this was the name of the military operation conducted by British troops to take back the Bogside. On the right is The Runner.

This one is titled Civil Rights. The protesters in Derry felt they were kindred spirits with anti Vietnam war protesters, civil rights marchers in the US, and other such groups 40 years ago.

Hunger Strike. This commemorates the hunger strikers in the Maze prison in Belfast who went on a protest hunger strike in October 1980. They were arguing for the retention of their status as political prisoners, which had been revoked by the British. They also refused to wear prison issued clothes, thus are clad only in blankets. I remember Bobby Sands, slowly starving to death during that strike, on world news almost every night. It was amazing to me, and a little horrifying, that someone would have such deep convictions to do that. I was kind of neutral in the whole dispute...a nonreligious, non Irish American, but the pictures and stories of that time were still very moving. Ten hunger strikers starved.

Death of Innocence depicts Annette McGavigan, a 14 year old girl shot by British troops on 6 Sep 1971. She was the 100th person to die in The Troubles. The butterfly represents a hope for peace; the broken rifle depicts the failure of violence.

This mural commemorates the 25th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, depicting the 14 people who died.

Derry

I'm now in Northern Ireland, in Derry...known in English circles as Londonderry, but none of the Irish in the Republic call it that. The site of Derry has been inhabited for at least 1500 years, but the current city is relatively new by European standards...400 years old. Several earlier settlements were destroyed or abandoned. When the current town was started, the planners decided to make it more defensible and built this sturdy stone wall around it, from 1614-1618. The walls are still almost completely intact...the only Irish city with that distinction. They were tested twice later in the 17th century and were never penetrated by an invader...thus Derry's nickname, The Maiden City.
This is Roaring Meg, the largest cannon on the walls at 1794 kilos. Meg was built for the city in 1642 on the first occasion enemies tried to breach the wall. The cannon was used extensively, probably in this very spot, during the 1689 siege when James II, the deposed Catholic king of England, was trying to win his kingdom back. But Derry would not yield, and after 105 days the siege was broken by a fleet allied with William of Orange, which came up the River Foyle and chased James away. There of course have been many disturbances since then. Though things are fairly calm now, I find it ironic that Roaring Meg is pointed...right at Bogside. That neighborhood was of course a central spot of The Troubles that plagued Northern Ireland from the late 1960s til the early '90s.

One of the most tragic events of The Troubles occurred right here, in Bogside, on 30 January 1972. Derry was crawling with British troops then...there had been violence at times for over three years. On this day paratroopers fired into a crowd demonstrating against a policy of internment without trial, an emergency measure imposed the previous year. Thirteen unarmed protesters were killed on the spot...another died of his wounds several months later. Another twelve, also unarmed, were injured. Two inquiries were held into the shooting. The first, by the British government, merely found that the shootings "bordered on the reckless". This finding destroyed what little faith the Catholics had left in the British authority. After peace had returned decades later, a second inquiry was held. This time the shootings were declared "unjustified and unjustifiable" and British prime minister David Cameron made a formal apology on behalf of the British government.

Of course, it's still a hot topic here, but discrimination against Catholics has been reduced significantly and these days disputes are almost all settled with words instead of guns. I had been interested in The Troubles for many years...I remember watching the unrest on TV during my college years and thereafter, and thinking it was sad that a Christian first world country would have so much sectarian violence. It was rather emotional to visit Bogside, where a lot of the trouble went down.

Of the fourteen people killed on Bloody Sunday, six were younger than me...a seventh was just about the same age. For almost four decades since, I've been carryin' on...they should have been too.

Derry has been renovated considerably in recent decades, but there are still many rows of old homes on the narrow side streets.

Whoa! Look who's on the UK ten pound note. Charles Darwin his own self. Now can you imagine what an uproar would go down in the US if Darwin made an appearance on our money? The creationists would go postal!! And in the UK, when Darwin published Origin of Species in the mid 1800s there was a ton of controversy. But since then, faced with a mountain of corroborating scientific evidence, apparently the large majority of English have accepted his theory of evolution, and the remaining dissenters are politely ignored. A refreshing difference from the US.

County Donegal

The past two days I've been in County Donegal, Ireland's northernmost county and one of its most beautiful...which is saying something. Here's the Triangle in Donegal town at dusk, which comes around 10 PM this time of year. We're at latitude 55 here, well north of Edmonton Alberta.

Slieve League, the highest sea cliffs in Ireland...600 metres straight up out of the ocean. It was a primeval day when I visited. Gray, foreboding skies added to the majesty of the cliffs. 40 knot winds enhanced the bleakness deliciously. I would have liked to stay a long time...there were picnic tables, but 50 degrees and 40 knots did not constitute ideal picnic weather.

Loch Beagh, near Glenveagh Castle. The clouds parted just enough to let in some magical sunlight, on an otherwise rainy day.

Today I hiked the McSwynes Gun Loop trail near Dunfanaghy, where I'm staying. This proved to be a gorgeous 9 km trek over dunes, through grasslands, high above the sea, and through farmlands dotted with sheep and ruins of ancient houses. The wind howled, and the ocean roared. Raw nature in spectacular form. This is Tramore Beach.

Grassy dunes just inland from the ocean were almost as awesome as the surf. This far north, the light for photography is awesome.

More scenes in Connemara and Mayo

On the grounds of Kylemore Abbey is a small but exquisite Gothic church, built by the owner in the late 1870s in remembrance of his wife, who died of dysentery during a holiday in Egypt.

This stained glass window is in the church.

Within the church, five kinds of marble are used, coming from each of Ireland's four historic counties...Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, and Munster.

Near Westport, this sculpture is a memorial to the victims of the Irish potato famine from 1845-51. It's a depiction of one of the ships that brought over two million emigrants out of Ireland during that time, mostly to the US. Another million died in Ireland from starvation and disease. Before the famine, about eight million people lived on the island...the population is still less that that after all this time, about six million.

The figurehead on the famine ship. Many people were already in a bad way when they boarded, and died en route to America. The famine was caused by a severe potato blight, enhanced by prolonged cold, wet weather (no surprise there!) that killed the lumpen, the spud eaten by most peasants. The British government proved uncapable (or unwilling) to supply the peasants with alternative food.

Out in far western Ireland on the peninsulas lies the Gaeltaecht, areas of the country where Irish is spoken as an everday language by much of the population. Folks in the Gaeltaecht also speak English, but many of the signs are in Irish only...bit confusing to us tourons. The pictures help.

I swung over to Achill Island yesterday. It has tranquil interior scenes...many working peat bogs. The coast is spectacular!

The Victorian Class System

Yesterday I visited Kylemore Abbey, one of Ireland's top tourist attractions. The Victorian mansion was completed in 1870 for a wealthy family, who enjoyed it up to 1903. The mansion was then sold to an English count who lost it in a card game. Rather a dissolute fellow...living off his rich Cincinnati wife's money. Eventually in 1920 the mansion was purchased by an order of Irish nuns who made it into an abbey and girls' school. It's still owned by the nuns and now run jointly by them and the Irish government.

When it was a private residence, the mansion of course had a large staff of caretakers. There was a world class Victorian walled garden, now restored. This was the dining room of the gardeners...distinctly rustic.

The Head Gardener, though, was in a much more prestigious position, running one of the top gardens in the British Isles. He and his family lived a comfortable middle class life...this was their dining room. Still not large, but much more comfy than the one used by his subordinates.

But of course, the mansion's proprietors lived in upper clahs splendor, dining in this ornate room with a black marble fireplace and the family crest on every glass. This table, fine as it is, seems a bit small for the room, and our tour guide said that larger tables were frequently used when houseguests were present.

Thus, Kylemore Abbey presents a neat vision of the UK class system during the Victorian era. Ireland of course was still in the UK in the late 1800s.

It was quite a blustery day yesterday. A 975 millibar low passed just north of Ireland and the predicted winds of 70-100 kph verified. It was reallly howling when I took this pic...blow it up and check out the streaks of spindrift on the water!

Logistics in Connemarra

There have been a wide variety of human activities in Connemara over the centuries, some of them a bit unusual by modern standards. Here's the staircase at Aughnanure Castle in County Galway. It was built by the O'Flaherty family in the 16th century. They were a rambunctious bunch, and often warred with their neighbors, so they built some shrewd defensive measures into the castle. Take this spiral staircase. It goes upward in a clockwise direction...we're looking down in this pic. Now if you are a right handed swordsman like most people, you can only get a full swing off if you're a defender, above the people trying to attack you and get upstairs. Their right handers are inhibited by the stone wall on the inside of the staircase. So the attackers would be at a severe disadvantage unless they had a bunch of lefties heading up the stairs.

Here's a wide view of the castle. The walls sloped a little outward at the bottom, meaning defenders could pitch, say, rocks or boiling oil from the battlements at the top and that stuff would ricochet outward toward the attackers. There was also a "murder hole" in the floor above the main entrance to the castle. Defenders could shoot arrows or throw stuff at the attackers trying to get in the front door, without risk to themselves.

All this was fine until the English employed modern technology in 1572...artillery! Murder holes turned out not to work very well against cannonballs. But, the O'Flahertys eventually reacquired the castle through peaceful means, and turned it over to the government in the mid 20th century; it's now a national historic site.

This is a memorial to John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who, it may surprise most Americans to learn, were the first people to fly nonstop across the Atlantic from North America to Europe! They did it in 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, and landed in a bog a couple miles from here, near Clifden in Connemara. There is, however, an asterisk...they took off from Newfoundland and landed here in Ireland...of course both are islands, but considered parts of North America and Europe respectively. Lindbergh was the first aviator to do a nonstop from mainland to mainland, which was a considerably longer flight.

Ireland is a boggy place. Here in Connemara the average annual rainfall is about 65 inches; the average annual evaporation is around 20. Can you say waterlogged? For millennia this soggy land has processed the grass, gorse, etc into peat, which is several feet deep in many places. When cut up into strips and dried, the peat makes excellent fuel...burning without a spark (good if you live in a thatched hut) and coming in very handy if you don't have forests for wood or buffalo for chips. This pic shows an old peat bog...blow up the image and you can see neat cuts that have been made over the years to extract peat. The area is now in Connemara National Park and is not used anymore...who knows when it was? Could be 20 years ago, or 200. Peat is a renewable resource...but long term, like timber. Don't know how fast peat replenishes itself...a guess would be a foot a century or so.

Here's a closeup of a modern, ongoing peat operation. The hillock in the background is being gradually shaved back and the peat cut into strips (foreground) and left out to dry. A problematical task as it rains nearly every day here! You can buy peat in stores, take it home, and use it for fuel...Wiki says more than 20 percent of Irish homes are heated by peat!

Dingle Sojourns

The Dingle countryside is fascinating. On one hand it's full of natural beauty...soaring ocean cliffs, rugged hills, pristine beaches. On the other, there's history everywhere. This is Kilmakeder church, built in the 12th century. Blow up the pic and you can see rather intricate artwork in the doorway. The site was used for worship long before the church was built...there are relics, including a sundial and a cross, on the site that are several centuries older.

Though the church is a ruin, the adjacent cemetery is still being used, intensively in fact...many graves are new. Some are inscribed in Irish, which is spoken routinely by many of the inhabitants in this area. They all speak English too, but roam around Dingle and you'll hear people conversing in Irish. To an English speaker, it's an exotic language...unlike French, Spanish, and German, few words are like their English counterparts. And the pronunciation is baffling. For example, the Prime Minister of Ireland, Enda Kenny, is known as the Taoiseach. This is pronounced tee-shock. Go figure.

One day I parked my car at Brandon Point, and hiked far above it to a stone cairn, perhaps a grave or memorial dating from the distant past. I met a man relaxing there, perhaps a decade older than me but in better shape. Turns out he works for an NGO and was just home from Sudan...what a change! Lots of turmoil there...his jeep was shot at one day. He's a local resident and comes to this spot for a tranquility fix. Different world from Sudan. We talked about Africa, and Obama, and some of his favorite spots nearby. He was into the spirituality of the land, of the people that had gone before him, and in this place, I understood perfectly. Kind of a mystical experience.

The islets you see offshore are some of the Seven Hogs, like my neighborhood pub in Castlegregory.

My acquaintance told me about Cahir Conree, an Iron Age fort inhabited, legend has it, by the high king of Munster over two thousand years ago. He suggested I hike up to it. Well, it's a long way up. I'm maybe two thirds of the way up there, and if you blow up this pic and look just above the center, you may be able to see my car...a loooong way down.

Alas, I didn't make it to the fort. As near as I can tell, it's on the top of the peak to the left...I made it to the little saddle on the ridge just right of center. Not only was the latter part of that trek hellaciously steep, but much of the trail was pure Russian Front...massive quagmires of mud. But, the country was vast and beautiful and it was a great workout. Slid on my butt a couple times on the way down and got wet and muddy, but fortunately the rental house had a very efficient washer and dryer so my wardrobe made a complete recovery.

Hangin' in Kerry

I'm in my rental house at Castlegregory, on the northern side of the Dingle Peninsula. No internet at the house so I'm at the Seven Hogs, sipping Guinness and eating delicious fish 'n chips whilst using their internet tonight. This area has some of the best beaches in Ireland...long, vast strands that are hugely wide when the tide is out. The weather was sketchy last weekend but made for some fine storm pictures.

From my house you go a couple miles north, and you're at the beach. Go four miles in the other direction, and you're in the midst of the mountains, with gorgeous lochs all round. The country looks and feels like it's about ten thousand feet up in the Sierra or Colorado Rockies...there are patches of forest giving to tundra-like scenes, it's cool and windy...but I'm less than a thousand feet above sea level here! By the way, blow up this pic and check out the stone wall going up the mountain a little to the right of the trees. Some serious work was done to build that!

Near the town of Dingle there are many historic sites from ancient Ireland. Some of the settlers circa 6th-8th centuries AD lived in beehive huts like this one. Looks rugged but they apparently kept the wind and rain out pretty well. And lasted a long time.

Dingle is a small town...only about 2000 people... but it's a major tourist hub. This is a typical street...it's a great place just to walk about and explore. It's only medium lively right now but in summer I guess it's packed. Nicer this way... you can easily get a parking place.

On the peninsula west of Dingle is Gallarus Oratory, an ancient church built circa 11th century. From what I've read, it hasn't been restored...it's remained intact for about a millennium! Couldn't get a shot with no people around as I arrived along with two tour buses.

Ramblin' on The Ring

The Ring of Kerry is simultaneously extolled as one of the most gorgeous parts of Ireland, and denigrated as touron chaos. Exploring in mid May, I've hit it lucky; the first part of the equation is spot on, and it's very quiet, in between the early May bank holiday and the summer high season. Ate at a fine restaurant in Sneem tonight, recommended by my B&B hosts, Friday night, not too early... 7-8PM...and I was the only diner!
Like any great scenic area, the Kerry coast produces some surreal scenes. Look at this water...green and crystalline. Bahamas? Hawaii? Nope. Ireland? Sure!

Went hiking on Valentia Island today. It's on the Skellig Ring, a smashingly scenic drive west of the Ring of Kerry. Only a few people here. I walked high upon a grassy headland, blending with the sea, sky, and land.

Here's Bray Head, looking out to the Skellig Islands. The right island, Great Skellig, was home to Christian monks from about the 6th to 13th centuries. It's harsh enough here on the mainland...cool and windy most of the time. It's cooler and windier out there. They built beehive-shaped huts out of stone, tended gardens in wind sheltered areas, fished, and traded goods with passing ships. But still, on a stormy winter day...REALLY harsh.

Late this afternoon, I drove through the resort town of Waterville, and caught the light just right. Blind pig syndrome at its finest.

After a sunny afternoon, the rain returned this evening. This shot was taken from my room at the B&B. I have a fabulous view...I can see the sea and sky changing all the time, and as dusk falls the light at The Bull, a rocky islet shrouded in the rain in this shot, starts beaming.