Next up? Derry/Londonderry

The walled city of Derry is beautiful but here again, signs of The Troubles are everywhere. Here is a picture of the wall:

The wall was built in the early 1600's and there are four gates in it. This is a picture of the inside with the new addition of an area of protection for the soldiers patrolling the wall. (By new addition, I'm talking 1625!!)

      I went with a city guide on a tour of the city. His name was Martin and he was wonderful. So passionate and did a good job of telling about the reality of how horrible it was during The Troubles and even now. These are the gates that were installed during the troubles. Every man, woman and child had to be searched coming in or out every single time. Here again, there was a "peace fence", tall tall tall so no IED's could be sent over the walls. As you can see, once again it is the less fortunate who live outside the gates and were the ones who were punished. Martin was one of these. He lived this way for 25 years and he had tears in his eyes when he spoke about peace.

This sign says "Londonderry still under siege. No surrender. It is outside the walled city.

This mural is of a schoolgirl shot by a British soldier during The Troubles. There was never an inquiry and no one was ever charged. 

People talk about it as if it were yesterday but I found out it happened 30 years ago. Apparently, there is finally finally an inquiry opened to provide some closure to her family and neighbors.


The day after I left Derry, I heard on the news that a pipe bomb had exploded here.


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