Sarah Pinter's reflection on our day trip to the Maiden City:
Our day began early with a journey by bus through the Irish countryside, which is kept lush by (you guessed it) lots and lots of rain. After about two hours, we arrived in the city of Derry/Londonderry. Although the city has an overwhelming Catholic majority, it also holds special significance for Protestants. In 1689, the Protestants of Londonderry held off a Catholic siege by the deposed King of England, James II, for over a hundred days. This later enabled the Protestant William of Orange to soundly defeat James at the Battle of the Boyne and secure Protestantism in Britain ( I know that you'll hear more about that on July 12). Catholics call the city Derry, Protestants call it Londonderry, and anyone wanting to avoid conflict affectionately refers to it as Slash City.
In true Irish fashion, it was spitting rain when we arrived, but soon it cleared up and the sun came out. First we walked through a museum to brush up on Londonderry's history. It was a great introduction, but the next museum we saw, the Museum of Free Derry, was profoundly sobering. The Museum of Free Derry is dedicated to Bloody Sunday, during which a Catholic civil rights protest was brutally put down by the police, resulting in thirteen deaths. We then broke for lunch at an Irish pub with one of the men from the museum, Rauri O'Hara, who proved to be an engaging conversationalist.
Michelle Gattentenio was our afternoon correspondant:
The second half of the day was full of personal stories and a wonderful scenic walking tour. We met our tour guide Adriene and started walking around the wonderful city of Derry/Londonderry (depending on which side of the political fence you are on determines the name of the city-crazy!!) Adriene took us up on the walls that surround the entire city- they were erected in the early 1600s to fortify the city. Up on top of the walls yielded the most amazing views- we saw the Bogside (The Catholic neighborhood), different murals and a bunch of different memorials- the one that seemed to impact most of us the most was the Hunger Strikers Memorial. It was in the shape of an H to represent the H-Block where Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers were kept in the jail. It was amazing hearing the stories Adriene had to tell about his personal experiences not only in jail but with the hunger strikers. He was incarcerated in the H-Block for four years and participated in the Blanket Strike (the protest where the men refused to wear the prison uniform and do demeaning jail tasks in order to gain rights as political prisoners back). He told us how he knew Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers, which was amazing. It was so interesting listening to him talk about what the mother's of the hunger strikers had to go through when it came to deciding whether or not to save their sons when they became to weak to function.
We talked about it after we returned 'home' and couldn't imagine our mothers or being mothers and having to either let out son die for something he believes in or save them from something they asked us not to. It really made the events and deaths of the hunger strikes more personal. After the tour we got the chance to walk around the town a little and then got back on the bus to go back to the dorms. Well we all got on the bus and crashed- it was a day of excitement and we were all thankful and ready for a nap. The countryside was beautiful- so green and hilly. It was so fun seeing all the sheep- an interesting fact all the farmers paint their sheep a certain color in order to distinguish "whose is whose" when they wonder away so we saw pink, green, blue and red sheep! What a fun country!
Cheers!
Michelle Gattenio
Click this link to see more pictures
No comments:
Post a Comment