Walking thru Derry with Ronan McNamara

Our Tour manager, Laureen, is in the lower right hand corner of this picture of a street in Derry.


I feel obliged to answer the question that titled yesterday's posting. Is it Derry or Londonderry? and the answer is YES
To some (Catholics/nationalists) it is Derry. To others (protestants/Unionists) the town is Londonderry. The town is both. Some signs list one name and others list the other. Sign posts in some neighborhoods have the LONDON part spray painted over. This is one minor sign of the "TROUBLE" as they call the problems here. Altho' the city has had a history of violence, one of the major historical incidents happened in the 1600 between William of Orange and James II ( I think that is the right James-- this would be a good time for you to look it up).

I have a picture of an old (1600 vintage) Presbyterian church which is no longer "inhabited" because it's congregation dwindled out and also because it is so close to the wall. If you look in the picture of the church, you will see a bombed out wall to the extreme left of the picture.




To back up a bit, our city walking tour was led by a very charismatic young man who calls himsself a "Ch-Irishman"--he is of Irish and Chinese parentage and is working with the schools on desegregation (between the two religious/ socio-economic groups)
He talked a gread deal about the beginning of the TROUBLE, about the problems in the early 1900's and about the civil rights struggles in the '60's. As he was talking a group of about 8 policemen and women came by. He told us that the fact that we are able to visit northern Ireland is because the police have kept the peace. And he also told us that the fact that we will come here speaks volumes for the peace process. He mentioned that this police force has been attacked more than almost any in this part of the world.

We drove in the bus by BOGSIDE an area of Derry that is covered with huge murals depicting heroes and martyrs of the cause. I got several really sharp pictures. The guide mentioned a novel by Leon Uris titled Bogside that tells all about the situation in the 60's.







After we finished the Derry walking tour, we headed for the banks to change dollars into British pounds. The American dollar took another dip this morning, so when I gave the lady $300, she gave me 146.66 pounds-- which means that each pound is worth more than $2. When N and N and I went to England in the '80's the story was the opposite. We gave them $100 and received over 200 British pounds. Different time, different situation. I guess turn-about is fair play. The tour manager told us that all coins w/ a harp on them the are Irish Euros and are virtually worthless to us since we left the Republic of Ireland. We can donate them to Unicef on the way home, or to the tour company's charity foundation, but they can't be redeemed for pounds or $'s.

We drove past an Irish Walmart called ASDA.
Some interesting phrases you might not know are
Give way- which means Yield
Cyclists dismount- bike rack
Dual Carriageway- 2-way road

Many of their road signs say "Thank you for driving carefully" on the back. The left side driving still un-nerves me when we're going around a "round-about" (traffic circle). That would be really hard to get used to. I keep thinking that we're about to hit someone.

We went to the Ulster American Folk Park which described the immigration of Irish to America. We saw the way Ireland was when the people left, we saw a "coffin ship" so called because 1/3 of the people beginning the trip didn't make it to their destination. and we saw depictions of the cities that most of the Irish immigrants came to in the 1700 and 1800's. Took quite a bit of time to go thru it all, but it was very interesting.


People in native dress were there to talk to you about what you were seeing.



We returned to Derry about 3:45 and have the rest of the day to ourselves. N and I ambled around an open air market. We sampled a pork sandwich--meat cut from a pig on a spit right there at the booth.

We went to POUND WORLD--yep, an Irish dollar store. We bought some candy and went looking for a place for N to get "fish and chips". We stopped in a local pub and he had his fish & chips and I had "cottage pie", which is a kind of hanburger goulash mixture in a "pie shell" of mashed potatoes. And yes, I also had Chips which are french fries and large green peas. I don't think they have any concept of "enough" potatoes.

We ambled a little more and came back to the hotel so I could write. After I finish this, N will download 2 days worth of pictures and we need to charge my camera- it totally went dry this afternoon.

I'm reading a novel entitled IRELAND by Frank Delandy, which is about a traveling storyteller who stops at a town to ply his trade and the book is his collection of historical stories of Ireland. Haven't gotten too far into it, yet, but should be finished in a day or two.

I'll stop now, so he can get about his doin'---------Later.