May 25 - Belfast

We left Dublin this morning shortly after 8:30 AM and headed to Belfast.  One short stop for a potty break and we arrived in Belfast before lunch.  We drove into the city center so we could grab some lunch.  We also hit the ATM to buy Pounds as they do not use Euros in Northern Ireland.  Here is a photo of the city hall.

We lucked out as they were having an International Fair on the grounds of City Hall so we were able to walk around and check out our choices.  Here is Pat inspecting the French bakery.

There was also this tent selling flowers.

We decided to eat in the German pavilion.  We had bratwurst on really good rolls and I had a Hefe Wiesen German bear.  Pat had a Diet Coke.

On the grounds of City Hall there were a number of monuments.  This one is to the Irish soldiers lost during the war in South Africa from 1899 to 1902.

After lunch we transferred to a group of what are called Black Taxis, except they weren't all black.  They were driven by a mix of Catholic and Protestant drivers.  They took us into one of the areas of the Troubles.  Belfast is a checkerboard of Catholic and Protestant areas and wherever these areas abut they've built walls to keep the two sides apart.  There are gates on the roads that pass thru the walls and those gates are closed every evening at 7:00 PM.  These walls make the Berlin wall look piddling.  We started on the Shandy Road Protestant area to view some of the murals. This particular mural is a memorial to an  UDA (Ulster Defense Association) or UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighter) gunman who had been awarded their  "Top Gun" award for the killings of Catholics.  He, in turn, was "murdered" by the Catholics.  This went on for years with one side or the other murdering the other side

Here is another mural supporting the UDA/UFF.  The painting of the gunman is uncanny, as you walk by the gun seems to track you.

Here is another memorial to a self proclaimed Lt. Colonel who killed Catholics and in turn was killed by them.

Here is a section of the wall.  It stands some 25 feet high and is covered by murals.

Here we are on the Catholic side on Bombay Street.  In the late 1960s the Catholic minority had started a civil rights campaign to try to get equal treatment.  The Protestants objected and started attacking the civil rights marchers.  This escalated in mid August 1969 when a mob of Protestants attacked the Catholics living on Bombay Street, burning their houses and killing several of them.  This triggered the resurrection of the IRA and the Protestants formed the UDA and UFF and the war was on.  Even though it was Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other it really wasn't about religion.  It was really between the Unionists who wanted to stay part of the UK and just happened to be Protestant versus the Nationalists who wanted to join the rest of Ireland and just happened to be Catholic.

Here are the memorials on the Catholic side.

What is known as the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 finally brought the worst of the violence to an end.  Interestingly, US President Bill Clinton is given a lot of credit for getting the agreement approved.  There is still not total peace between the groups and the walls and gates remain in place. In addition, as a local you know which pubs to frequent and which ones to stay away from and you also know to stay out of the other guys neighborhoods especially at night.  The younger generations are finding it easier and the time will come when the Troubles will be only a distant memory.

After this tour we checked into our hotel and then went on a more conventional tour of the city.  Here is our tour guide.

One of the pubs in the city center offers a husband sitting service know as the Husband Creche.  The wife just needs to pay for his drinks and the pub will keep him entertained until you finish your shopping.

Here is one of the local pubs.

This tower is know as the Royal Albert Memorial Clock.  It is one of Belfast's most famous landmarks and it sits in Queen's Square near the docks.  It was built in 1869 as a memorial to Prince Albert who had been Queen Victoria's husband.

This is the Merchant Hotel which is a 5 star luxury hotel sitting in the old section of Belfast.  It was originally built as the Ulster Bank in the 1850s but fell in to disrepair.  It was purchased and restored. Very ornate

In this area there are some alleys covered in murals.  Definitely not political.

Here is another section.

We the proceeded to the Duke of York pub for a pint.  Here we are getting ready to go in.

Here is the bar.  Lots and lots of different Irish whiskeys.

Her we are sitting in the back room listening to Irish music and enjoying our drinks.

Her are the two musicians.

And here they are playing.

After leaving the pub we went by this Church of Ireland cathedral, St. Anne's. The original church dates from 1776 but the present building replaced the original church in 1904.  They refer to it as a cathedral but it really isn't one but is the most impressive church in Belfast.

We then went out for a fish and chips dinner before returning to our hotel.  Tomorrow we visit the Titanic museum, then drive north to the Giant's Causeway and then end up in Londonderry/Derry.

May 24 - The Tour Begins

Took it easy this morning and then this afternoon we met up with our Trafalgar tour group.  Here is a photo of the bus we will be riding in for the next 10 days.

We started out with a guided tour of the city a good chunk of which we did over the last two days but we did pick up more information and saw a couple of things that were new.  The first was a chance to take a photo of St. Patrick's from the other side which was a much better view than we had before.

As you can see we had another beautiful day.  One thing we did learn was that the spire is not original, it was added in the 19th century during a restoration funded by the Guinness family.  Apparently the church was in very bad shape as Oliver Cromwell had hated Catholic churches, which is what it was at the time and so during his time in Dublin he used the church as a horse stable.  On this side of the church is a garden area.  In 1901, construction activity unearthed six Celtic grave slabs and one of them was found to be covering an ancient well that some believe was used by St. Patrick to baptize new Christians.  Who knows, but it makes a nice story.  Here is the site of that well.

Just past the church there is welfare housing that had been financed by the Guinness family.  As a memorial to Jonathon Swift who had been Dean of St. Patrick's there is a plaque above the doorways showing scenes from Gulliver's Travels.  Here is one of those plaques.

St. Patrick's was built outside of the walls of Dublin and Christ Church was built inside the walls.  Between them we came across this section of the medieval wall which is still standing.

On the way back to our hotel we got this view of the rugby stadium.  It is built so that the stands are covered but the field is open.

After we got back to the hotel we walked across the street to the Grand Canal which connects the River Liffey in Dublin to the River Shannon in the west of Ireland.  It was begun in 1757 but after multiple failures was finally finished in 1804.  It was used for commercial barge traffic until 1960.  Now it is used primarily for pleasure boating.  Across the street from the hotel the have a couple of boats that do dinner cruises on the canal and that is what we did.  Here is a photo of our boat.

Here we are sitting down to dinner.  This not a very wide boat and it was pretty cramped.

Just downstream from where we boarded the boat there is one of the locks.  Her is a photo of one of the dinner boats going into the lock.

Here they are closing the upstream lock.

The boat is sitting high as they begin to drain water out of the lock.

Here is the water rushing out of the lock.

And here is the boat lower as it gets ready to head down stream.

and here is the canal as it continues on it's way to the River Liffey.

Tomorrow will be an early day as at 8:30 we board the bus and head to Belfast, Northern Ireland.  We've been using Euros so far but in Northern Ireland we will have to use pounds and shillings.

May 23 - Touring Dublin 2

Today was our third day in Dublin and our second day playing tourist.  Today we had the best weather since we've been in Ireland.  Once again we used the Hop On Hop Off bus to take us around the city.  Our first stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral and you can see by this photo that it was a beautiful day.

The site of St. Patrick's is believed to be the oldest Christian site in Ireland with initially a wooden church built in the 5th century.  In the garden next to the cathedral they have located a well which is believed to have been used by St. Patrick to baptize the locals.  The current cathedral was built between 1191 and 1270 so it's about 50 years newer then Christ Church but is bigger and it's the largest church in Ireland.  I thought is was a prettier church than Christ Church.  Both St. Peter's and Christ Church are Anglican and part of the Church of Ireland.  This designation as the Church of Ireland is a remnant of the days of English rule as the Irish are by a large majority Roman Catholic (84%) while the Church of Ireland is less then 3%.  Here is a photo looking down the length of the church.

Here is a photo of the choir area:

Here is a photo of the main altar:

Behind the altar is an area called The Lady Chapel.  This is a large chapel dedicated the the Blessed Virgin Mary and located directly behind the main altar.

And here is a close up of the altar in the chapel:

At the very front of the Nave is this pew reserved for the head of state with the emblem of Ireland, the harp, on a field of blue which is considered to be St. Patrick's color.

The floor is covered with ceramic tile set in a pattern.  Since anything made by the hand of man can not be perfect, one of the tiles is intentionally set wrong, it's rotated 90 degrees.  Here is that floor area with our guide pointing out the incorrectly set tile.

One item they have on display is an old door with a section missing out of the center.  This dates back to 1492 when there was a feud between two Irish Families, the Butlers and the FitzGeralds.  The Butlers took refuge behind this door in the church and the head of the FitzGeralds had his men cut a hole in the door and reached his arm through it to offer peace to the Butlers.  They accepted, shook hands and peace reigned for at least a little while.

One of the most famous of St. Patrick's Deans was Jonathon Swift who served as Dean from 1713 until his death in 1745.  In order to have the last word, he wrote his own epitaph as shown on this plaque which is on the wall of the church just above his grave in the church floor.  He wrote Gulliver's Travels while serving as dean.

The church has a lot of monuments either attached to the walls or free standing, here are a couple of photos of examples:

The stained glass windows were very beautiful and here are examples of some of them.

Our next stop was the Guinness Storehouse which is the location of the original brewery established by Arthur Guinness in 1759.  He must have figured that brewing would be a good long term business as he signed a lease for the property for 9,000 years.  The building we entered was a fermentation plant from 1904 to 1988 but now is a seven story visitor center.  When you enter the first thing you see is the gift shop as in this photo.

You then walk from floor to floor where they take you thru the steps of making Guinness Extra Stout Porter.  Here is one of the exhibits which is about how they get their fresh water from the Wicklow Mountains just south of the city.

On the top floor is what is called the Gravity Bar where you get to have a pint of Guinness Stout.  The bar has a 360 degree view over the city that is pretty spectacular. This photo shows part of the plant.

Here are some views.

This photo shows the Spire of Dublin which is on O'Connell Street.  It is 400 feet tall and is supposed to represent Dublin looking to the future.  It is 10 feet in diameter at the base and tapers all of the way up.  Looks like a giant flagpole without the flag.

Here you can see the spire of St. Patrick's the The Aviva Stadium just to the left.  This stadium is home to a rugby team and a Gaelic football team.  When we were visiting in Collon we had Gaelic football explained to us, it's complicated and seems to be a cross between soccer and rugby.

In this photo you can see the Wicklow Mountains just to the south of Dublin.

We then had lunch on the 5th floor in the cafeteria as seen here:

Here is a photo of the interior of the visitor center.

Our last stop was the Jameson Distillery.  Unfortunately is was going to be over an hour wait to get on a tour so we just hit the gift shop

Here is a photo of the entrance area of the distillery with several restaurants and bars.

While we were waiting for the bus I took this shot of modern apartment building in this area of the city.  Convenient location as just at the corner there was a stop for the light rail system which takes you right into the city center.

We mad e it back to the hotel and then went out for Saturday Vigil Mass at St. Mary's Church which is just one block down from the hotel.  Here is a photo of that church.  It was built in 1839.

And here is the interior.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off for a traditional fish and chips dinner.

Tomorrow we meet up with our tour.