Back to our trip. On Day 3 we attempted to get an early start but were foiled by the darkness I mentioned in the last post. We hit some beaches and a castle at 7 am, but it was still completely dark. We did happen upon large numbers of polar swimmers (all over 60 years old) at every beach we saw along the way, so it must be an Irish thing.
So we kept driving to Derry/Londonderry. This city has a lot of history, as the flashpoint of the Troubles, including being the site of Bloody Sunday II (1972). It was of additional interest to us since we binged the show Derry Girls when we arrived in Ireland, which is basically the Irish version of the Wonder Years, featuring a group of high school girls in NI near the end of the Troubles in the 90s.
As for the city name, it was renamed by the British in their attempt to anglicize the island during colonization, so the name is highly controversial. It is Derry in the south, and Londonderry in the north (where it is located). This is not a trivial distinction. It will lead to fights. The name has its own Wikipedia page. Even the pronunciation of Londonderry is controversial, with the north calling it LONDONderry, and the south pronouncing it londonDERRY when they have to use the term. What's interesting to me is that it was generally referred to as Derry by everyone peacefully until it became a shibboleth (virtue/identity signal) in the 1960s' Troubles, when people in NI started using Londonderry to make a point. While peace was achieved in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, there is a still a lot of tension under the surface.
One really cool thing about Derry is that it is called the "Walled City" because it is completely encircled by a continuous massive wall, enabling you to walk around the town at an elevated level. And if you know your Latin, you won't be surprised that the city has a lot of murals.
From Derry we exited Northern Ireland to see Slieve League, which is yet another set of coastal cliffs, but these are the highest you can visit in Europe. There are only 10 parking spots near the top, so in the off-season we could drive to the top, whereas in the busy season they save the spots for disabled parking and you have to hike a mile up. We saw the coolest rainbow ever! It was between us and the cliffs, and we could see it hit the ocean.
Running out of daylight, we then quickly got some castle landscape photos (privately-owned, no entry) and saw Ireland's best preserved court cairn (5000 years old) in "Yeats Country" near Donegal (donny-GAUL). Finally, we settled into our BnB near Sligo (SLY-go) for the night.
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| Polar swimmers at dawn |
DERRY/LONDONDERRY
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| The most complete walled city in Europe |
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| Entering Derry at Bishop's Gate, one of 7 gates into the city, and onto the wall. |
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| One view from the wall |
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| This photo doesn't quite capture it, but here you can kind of see the wall we are walking is a good 20-30' wide. It is substantial. It's all the way around the city uninterrupted, with lots of on/off points. |
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| Cute church |
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| City Hall |
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| Stock photo of defiant sign that made Derry famous. The house the wall was part of was removed but the wall stayed. |
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| It currently gets updated as needed. I've commented before about how Ireland sees a lot of parallels with and sympathy for Palestine. |
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| One of the murals, which you can also see in the stock photo. There were about 8 murals I took a picture of, and probably 20 total, mostly in this historical neighborhood (Bogside) |
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| Political messages are not subtle (loyalist = pro-British) |
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| "Hands across the Divide." You may notice the hands are not actually touching yet (it was installed pre-1998). |
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| Leaning into the TV show Derry Girls. This mural has a lot less swearing than the show. Just FYI, the F-word isn't really a swear word in Ireland. It's just an all-purpose word. "Fecking" is sometimes used instead, similar to "freaking" in the US. |
SLIEVE LEAGUE CLIFFS |
| You are probably tired of seeing these similar photos, but it is so majestic in person. |
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| Rainbow up close. We have another picture showing it more clearly terminating in the water, but that photo is not as vivid. |
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| Sun setting |
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| At 2000 feet, it is three times the height of the famous Cliffs of Moher, and double the height of the Eiffel tower. On a more sobering level, this exact piece of grass was probably the most dangerous location of our entire trip. That is wet golf course grass on a 45 degree slope about 10 feet to the edge. If you slipped here, it would be over. |
YEATS COUNTRY
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| Classiebawn Castle with landscape. The mesa in left distance is Benbulbin, which we did not have time to go explore. Sheep in the midground. |
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| Waves crashing on rocks. Photos don't show depth well, but we are still very high here. I didn't quite feel comfortable going to the well-worn photo spot in front of me. |
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| The court cairn at Creevykeel |
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| It was pretty dark at this point. I'm amazed at how visible these photos are. |
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| Stock daytime photo of what you are looking at in the previous images. This site was excavated by Harvard. |
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| Gas station delis are the go-to for locals, and we have certainly enjoyed them. Just don't pronounce "chicken fillet" as fill-ay. It is fill-it. You will be mocked. |
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| I think Google maps routed me onto someone's driveway. We took this little 2 track for a few miles through some backyards in the woods. Fortunately no oncoming traffic. |
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