Today our main stopping point was a visit to Derry/Londonderry. On the way to this beautiful city we stopped briefly in Donegal for a lunch stop. We had a little picnic in the main square of the town before continuing onto Derry. On our way out we passed a black pot sitting out in a green field. Pascal told us this was their monument for a Famine Graveyard.
As we arrived into Derry Pascal jumped into action, pointing out statues and monuments throughout the city showing the tensions still present between the Catholics and the Protestants. There was a statue, for example, of two people reaching out to each other. Their hands were close, but not yet touching. He reported that this is representative of the |
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With Charlene on board we drove first through the Bogside in a quick introduction to this historical part of town where on January 30, 1972 British gunsmen and tanks unleased fire upon a peaceful civil rights march whose goal was to protest a policy of indefinite detention and interrogation by the British military. This has come to be known as Bloody Sunday. That day 26 people were shot, and more than half of them died that day.
We also drove alongside the Peace Wall which separates the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. It is with this wall that they continue to work toward peace. They hope to be able to take this wall down someday, but neither side is ready to have it come down yet. |
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This evening we stayed in the town of Portrush, a popular vacation spot for the region. It was a cute beach town. They had an amusement park, arcades, and other fun attractions. We had a group dinner at a restaurant called 55º North. The food was very good, and the view from the large windows was beautiful!
After dinner we went for a walk on the beach. The water was cool, but the sand felt nice on our feet. As we walked along the water's edge it started to rain a bit, so we turned around to head back to the room. |