Tues May 14, 2024
Hi Folks! Well we had a very interesting day with a very interesting tour guide. But first let me tell you we were docked in Greencastle, which is in the Republic of Ireland but spent the day touring around the town of Derry in Northern Ireland which was about a 45 minute drive from our dock.
I had booked a private guide thru Rick Steves with a company called Bogside History Tours. A guy named Liam Duffy met us and the first thing he told us was he was in jail for 15 years and fought for the IRA (Irish Republican Army). We thought, uh oh, what did we get ourselves into! But he was such a great tour guide and told us all the history of the area. Of course he was a little biased toward the IRA side and didn’t have too many nice things to say about the Brits!
But he was so passionate about the cause and personalized so many stories. We drove by two of the jails he was held in (they closed one down while he was there and moved him to another). He showed exactly where his car was when a bomb was put underneath it but didn’t go off since it was so cold that night and the freezing weather caused the bomb to fall off the car so he could see it.
He showed us the streets he fought in and several memorials where his friends who had died during the struggles were memorialized. We would see other tour guides and he’d tell us how they too were in jail with him. We walked by the various murals that depicted the fighting as well as the 14 people who died during “Bloody Sunday”. That was on Jan 30, 1972. They say it was inspired by the Civil Rights marches in America back in the mid-1960’s.
We also walked on the pedestrian “peace bridge” which they named to link the neighborhoods long divided which were the Catholic Nationalists on the West Bank and the Protestant Unionists in the east bank. While it was somewhat heavy and depressing to hear about all the fighting and bloodshed it was encouraging to hear that peace is now in place and both sides can now coexist. We hope it stays that way.
After the tour we were somewhat drained so we just chilled out and got room service for dinner. (Sorry, no food pics tonight!). In prep for our visit to the Normandy D-Day beaches area in the next couple days they showed Saving Private Ryan on the big screen in the Grand Salon so we went to watch that. We figured we were already depressed about war and fighting, why not watch more about it! Lol. While it’s a long movie it is a really great one.
Tomorrow we have a sea day so we can relax and sleep in. Especially since we’re losing an hours sleep again tonight. Oh well, we’re very blessed and life is good! Hope everybody had a great Tuesday!
The Wandering Italian 