Sunday 10 April 2016

Back to dear old Blighty

Hello lovely people! Hope you've had a great Easter and a bit of break.

We got back very late in the early hours of Thursday morning and had a lovely time in Ireland, but it took us 3 days to get to Donegal! The bloody car started to play up when we got 
off the ferry and we had to stay in B and B just outside Dublin for 3 nights while we waited for the car to be repaired. None of this was helped by it being Easter weekend but we went with the flow and went into Dublin on Easter Monday to see the commemoration of the centenary of the Easter Rising in 1916.


The Easter Rising was an important event in Irish history as it paved the way for the Irish Republic and allowed the Irish nation to no longer be a colony of Britain. There's still the problem of the six counties after partition but that's a problem that will be around for a long time. Anyway, the laying of the wreath ceremony pictured above was for the relatives of those who lost their lives during the Easter Rising in 1916.

The ceremony took place inside the Four Courts.

File:Four Courts, Dublin (front view).jpg


This is the infamous GPO building where a lot of the fighting took place. You can still see the bullet holes today.


Trinity College, Dublin.


This is me on the Ha'penny bridge in Dublin. It was a chilly day!


This was taken in the local park in Lucan, Co. Dublin where we stayed in B and B.  It was a nice village where they had 2 charity shops and I bought a lovely, real leather jacket for 9 euros in one. I'll wear it in a future post.


On Monday last we went to Derry and did a bus tour.  Derry (Londonderry) is about 55 to 60 miles from Donegal. I'd done the tour before but there were some changes from 2005.

These are some of the murals from the Catholic side of the city. This is where the civil rights march took place and where the British army opened fire on the protesters.  It became known as Bloody Sunday. This young girl is one of those killed by a bullet.




When I was here in 2005, the Protestant side of the city had its own murals, too. Union Jacks abounded as did the Red Hand of Ulster and lots of slogans such as; "No surrender!" Now, this is all that's left. It's all about peace and harmony.  It makes me wonder if the other set of murals will also be revamped in due course.


The journey home was loooong!! The ferry disembarked 2 hours late and there was a junction closure and diversion through Birmingham on the M6. I have decided never to take my own car again but to fly and hire a car whilst I'm in Ireland. That way, if there are car problems someone else can take care of them.

It's good to be home.

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