Chapter 24: The North of the South

We continued our Irish journey northeast to Moville, a sea town near the very top of the island. Our route took us in and out of the UK, crossing the open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland with no signs or security, and at some points it was hard to tell which country we were in. The speed limits alternated between kilometers-per-hour on the Irish side and miles-per-hour on the British side, but neglected to show units, leaving Rachel perplexed as to why cars were zooming around her after a “60” sign – she was driving 60 kph in a 60 mph zone.

(I’m reminded of an instance in Dubai when I went into our small apartment gym for a long-overdue workout, and picked up a pair of dumbbells stamped “25” to start warming up. I was flabbergasted at how heavy 25 lbs felt, quickly getting out-of-breath. A few moments later I sheepishly realized that the weight was stamped in kilograms, and I was relieved to set down the 55-lb dumbbells for a more appropriate warmup weight.)

Speaking of peak physical performance, I related in last episode’s blog that our strenuous, steep Mt. Errigal hike had resulted in a wee hospital visit for me.

(“Wee” is used generously in the argot of the Irish to refer to things that are quick, small, or no big deal: “just take that wee trail over the hill”, “give me a wee phone call”. I kinda like it and and may use it a wee bit.)

Anyway, my left knee was sore and stiff for several days after our hike, so our first night in Moville I got into a good deep squat to stretch it out. This was immediately recognized as a mistake, and, yada yada, I spent a week on the couch not being able to bend it at all. At that point, tired of not being able to put on socks myself or sleep comfortably, I called a GP, who told me to go to the hospital in Derry to make sure it wasn’t fluid accumulation.

Rachel drove me down the next day. While I was checking into the UK NHS system (Derry is in Northern Ireland), the receptionist noticed I was a tourist and asked me if I was staying north or south. I answered “north”, because our AirBnb was about 30 minutes north of the hospital. Several confusing sentences later, I realized that people in this region say “North” to refer to the country of Northern Ireland, and “South” to refer to the Republic of Ireland. So I was actually staying in the South, even though we had to drive north to get back to the South.

At any rate, I waited two hours for a doctor to poke my knee with her index finger and tell me it wasn’t a big deal and to go back home.

So, I convalesced on the couch for a few more days, and my swollen knee unswelled, and I could sit on the toilet normally again, and all was well in our traditional-style thatched cottage.

Speaking of the north, we visited Malin Head – the most northerly point on the island.

We never tired of how green this country is. I guess four months of living in the UAE will do that to you.

About this time, Rachel and I made friends with Sean, the old Irishman who lived next door to us in Moville. He poked his head over the stone wall one day to invite us over to partake in his extensive collection of Irish whiskey and listen to his stories of growing up and working in Belfast. (He also taught us an important lesson: don’t try to go drink-for-drink with an old Irishman.)

Twice he took us into the small neighborhood pub where we met the locals and listened to tall tales of adventures long past. The regulars all told their wives and girlfriends that the pub was men-only on Friday nights, but they easily made an exception for Rachel and several other young women; we quickly discerned that this loose rule existed so they could drink and flirt with impunity, sans watchful eyes.

We found a wee private beach through a passageway in the rocks near our cottage.

And Rachel continued to be charmed by baby lambs.

The Giant’s Causeway, a coastal area of basalt formations caused by volcanic activity 50 million years ago, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Northern Ireland. We took a short ferry across Lough Foyle to enter the UK, and made the scenic drive on a warm Saturday morning.

Everyone else in the area picked that day to visit as well.

We were able to hike a bit to get away from the worst of the crowds…

…but made a pact to stick to weekdays for visiting tourist attractions from now on.

Derry is officially named Londonderry, and you can easily tell where one’s loyalties lie by which name they use. The city was the flashpoint for The Troubles, a 30-year period of sectarian violence and conflict across Northern Ireland which officially ended in 1998.

The three-day riot known as the Battle of the Bogside in 1969 is commonly regarded as the beginning of The Troubles, but the Bloody Sunday incident of 1972, also in the Bogside area of Derry, made the conflict known on a world stage when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march.

I never thought rubber bullets were a big deal until I saw the size of the ones used on protestors in Northern Ireland in the 60s and 70s, evidenced in the picture above.

The history of Ireland’s 800-year-long conflict with the British crown is fascinating, and deplorable. To understand the full story, Rachel and I tried to watch as many movies as we could: Black ’47, Michael Collins, Bloody Sunday, Hunger, Belfast, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. We came to the nuanced and subtle conclusion that the British government has basically acted like a bunch of assholes for a better part of a millennium.

Only in 2010 was the final Bloody Sunday Inquiry into the 1972 incident published, and British prime minister David Cameron acknowledged that British paratroopers had fired the first shot and had fired on fleeing unarmed civilians. He then apologized on behalf of the British Government.

There is sobering video in Derry’s museum of thousands of people watching Cameron’s broadcast live on a huge projector screen in the center of the city, many bursting into tears as he stared into the camera and affirmed that every civilian that died that day was unarmed. Hundreds of hands held photos of dead children – 6 of the 13 people killed were under 18 years old.

The original hastily-produced report supported the British Army’s account by stating that the soldiers returned fire at gunmen and bomb-throwers, a claim undermined by the inconvenient fact that their only injury that day was to one soldier who shot himself in the foot on accident. Later in the year the battalion commander Derek Wilford was awarded “The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”.

Also enshrined in the Derry museum is this letter, sent by the UVF, a loyalist paramilitary group, to the parents of Jim Wray, 22, shot in the back while running away from soldiers and then shot again in the back as he lay paralyzed on the ground.

Rachel and I did a guided walking tour of the city where we heard this history and much more, and touched bullet holes in the city walls. I do remember hearing about some of The Troubles while growing up in the 90’s, and listening to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2, and I’m glad we spent the time to learn more about the history of this tortured border.

Today, Derry is a bustling and easygoing port city, replete with tourists flocking to its museums, restaurants and bars. We visited on two beautiful sunny spring afternoons, walked the quiet riverside paths alongside the River Foyle, and crossed its gorgeous Peace Bridge. The most popular attraction by a large margin was the mural for Derry Girls, the wildly popular TV show released in 2018 about five teenagers growing up in the city in the 1990s.