I have great notes on the trip which I will try to encapsulate when I have some time as well as pictures. 

Today was something very different, we crossed from The Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland to the city of Derry, known among Unionists as Londonderry. We have been submerged in the history of Ireland since we arrived and an ugly history it is. The Great Famine was really the Great Hunger and there was plenty of food for export to  Great Britain and its colonies, but only potatoes were permitted to the Irish and when the blight struck the landlords would not permit the Irish to eat the food they were producing. 

In the early 1900’s Ireland was partitioned and the British kept the 6 northern provinces as part of the UK and made the rest of Ireland a part of their empire. Eventually the Irish were made a free state by revolution, but in the treaty they were not permitted to  keep  the northern provinces and a civil war commenced among those who wanted to keep the treaty and those who were prepared to fight to the death for a united Ireland. The Irish are (were?) primarily Catholic and the British  are Protestants. They have never gotten along. 

In Derry the divide was and is to this day rigidly maintained. Marching Season dates back to 1604 when King James – then Catholic -was stopped at the city gates by thirteen protestants who barred the gate. He laid siege to the city and every year the Catholics march down to the gate to commemorate  the event.had a recent history

In 1972 that march lead to Bloody Sunday when the British brought in paratroops to stop the parade. Of the 14 who died that day 8 were shot by one trooper known as “F” . Today we met the grandson of the first to die and he told us the history of that day in bloody detail. I asked him if he could imagine  free mixing of Catholics and Protestants in his lifetime – he is 21 – and he said no. They have no particular animosity, but the last of the fighting was only 20 years ago. 

The only thing that he, and others, see as bringing change is Brexit which will be devastating to the already poor economy of Northern Ireland. The creation of hard borders between the Irelands will be crushing to the tourism trade they are building.  

The history is long ugly and complex. There are at least four different sides. The pressure behind much of the fighting  can be found in our own Civil rights struggle and that of other nations around the world. They called for one man one vote and the end of Gerrymandering, which has a the same meaning as ours but was enforced at the level of household, religion and business. The Catholics with a majority in the population had only 12 seats in the government of 60! 

Here are pictures of some of the murals in Bog Side,  the Catholic area:

I’ll stop the convoluted story of the history there with only the one comment, we have yet to find a country to visit that has not  had a recent history of of violent abuse of members of the  society.

I will incorporate any corrections to details in this history, I am working from memory of several presentations over the past 10 days.