Derry

Yesterday we went to Derry! Renamed Londonderry in the early 1800s when it was rebuilt with the help of a bunch of London businessmen, it played a central role in "The Troubles" of Northern Ireland.

"The Troubles", the conflict between the Irish Republicans and the UK government, began long ago with factions within different cities pledging loyalty to two different kings claiming the throne in the 1800s (I think). Unfortunately, this dividing line solidified between the Catholic and Protestant communities, and ultimately escalated into bloodshed in Northern Ireland. The first violence occurred here in Derry, when policemen fired into a crowd of demonstrators in the city on Bloody Sunday. After decades of bombings, a mostly destroyed and rebuilt city, and 3,500 deaths, Derry is finally peaceful. Our tour guide told us that the inhabitants are quite optimistic that the peace will stay.

These murals were designed by school children from both the Protestant and Catholic communities in Derry, and celebrate the peace.


Our guide pointed out the site that until a few years ago, had been the heavily fortified police station that had been there for some thirty years ago. Now it's just a plain old boring parking lot!

Life's a Breeze...

Howdy! Or should I say "Good Afternoon!"

Our second week in Ireland continues. I'm sitting on the floor in our cottage watching the fire pop. Dad fears that I've inherited his pyromaniacal tendencies. He could be right!

Our first week was spent wandering around western Ireland. We hypothesized that Ireland would be an excellent place for wind power: so much wind and plenty of land for wind farms. We always kept our eyes open for wind turbines but only saw a handful in our week.

Contrast that with Northern Ireland, which is actually part of the United Kingdom. Based out of a cottage in Norther Ireland, we've been pleased to see many wind turbines around the countryside here. We've probably seen on the order of 70 to 100 wind generators in the three days we've been here. In all, the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) has some 200 wind farms supplying 3,500 MW of power, enough electricity for about 2 million homes. Pretty impressive. Ireland seems ideally suited for wind power, just as Florida is ideally suited for solar. Unlike Florida though, the UK seems to be pretty progressive about adopting responsible energy practices--we read today in the newspaper that by 2015, the UK plans on obtaining 20%-25% of its electricity from wind power.

For Peat's Sake!

Jim, Jody, and Jamie at Bogspot.com

Surprise! I'm in Ireland. I've been so delinquent in blogging lately that I forgot to tell you I'm going to Ireland. We'll, we're here. We arrived Yesterday, Saturday morning, in Dublin. Since none of us slept on the plane, we were pretty loopy yesterday. The combined stress of navigating round-a-bouts, trying to remember to drive on the right side of the road, and trying to figure out where everything is, made us downright slap-happy toward the end of the day yesterday.

We rented a four-door Audi manual car (45mpg, we reckon--or if you care to calculate it as the Europeans do:

1 gallon 3.785 L 0.62 mile 2.22
-------- x -------- x ------ x ---- = 5.07 L per 100km
45 miles 1 gallon 1 km 2.22

)


We are spending a week in Oughterard, a small town in Western Ireland. I think it's pronounced "ottered" with a longer "r". Maybe when its first inhabitant moved there, he was mauled by a bunch of freshwater mammals? There is a lake here! It's possible!

The cottage we are staying in has an excellent view out onto Lake (or Lough, if you're feeling Irish) Corrib. I took a walk out this afternoon and chatted with a fisherman down the road. He was just leaving his ~12' boat to head home. He told me it was a "hardy day" today. Cold and wet, and only one fish, about "thiis" big. Fishing for brown trout and salmon, the fishermen tie mayflies to their lines, let the wind catch the lines and hold the fly just at the water's surface. The fish then comes up to the surface, eats the fly and gets caught by the hook as well.



Between Dublin and our cottage in Oughterard, we stopped at a bog. Bogs are a curious and common geological feature in Ireland. Layers and layers of dead plants fill up a shallow lake, and before they can fully decompose, they are covered with water and more plants, especially a specific type of moss. Eventually the dead plants turn into peat and the whole area becomes a bog. It takes approximately 1000 years to build up 1 meter of bog.



Peat is a common fuel in Ireland. I'm actually warming my feet in front of a peat fire right now! There are a number of peat power plants around the country, and provide enough power for 500,000 homes. We passed some peat bricks "drying" on the side of the road.



This bog is especially interesting, because it is home to the Corlea Trackway, an ancient (c. 150 BC) oak-plank road stretching across 100 meters of bog. We got to see 18m of the trackway, perfectly preserved after it sank into the bog just ten years after its construction.



The curious thing about the trackway is that the people that built this had to have known that the road would sink into the bog quickly, and that it was possible to travel around on the higher land without too much trouble. So is it possible that this road was instead some sort of religious item? Who knows?