We spent today walking around Derry and one of the places we walked to was the Bogside area where the Bloody Sunday confrontation of 1972 occurred. I remember hearing about this as a teenager and it struck me now that here was a modern western country struggling with civil unrest which resulted in the death of thirteen people…hard to believe. A group of artists, called the Bogside Artists, have painted murals at the end of some of the housing blocks in the ar...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAYLEY!!! We were awoken by phone calls from family and friends ringing to wish Hayley a happy 21st birthday. It was all a little overwhelming for the birthday girl (and her Mum)…I think it really struck her how long she'd been away and much she missed her family. She opened the cards that I'd been entrusted with and cried some more. Our mission for the day was to find some costumes to wear that night and try to find a gold bangle which was t...

We set off early on the last day of our road trip as we had lots to do before the day ended; visit the Donegal cliffs, the Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, then on to Belfast to drop off the hire car and catch a bus for the hour and a half trip back to Derry. Phew! First stop, the cliffs of Donegal. As we wound our way up the road to the top of the cliffs, it narrowed and came dangerously close to the edge of the cliffs…about a metre or two...

What a wondrous sight beheld us in the morning; we discovered that just over a low stone wall and across a hundred metres of grass lay the sea! It was such a shame that it was raining so we couldn't go out for a closer view. We had a lovely cooked breakfast and I discussed the road rules of turning right across traffic with our host who smiled and said the other drivers were just being courteous…how very Irish. I still think they weren't taking any chances wi...

It was a cold drizzly day as we began our three day road trip of Ireland in a Budget hire car office. Our trusty stead for the trip was a cute small car…bred unknown. After a few seconds of internal head chatter about whether to hire a satellite navigator "€15 ($30) a day seems a lot…is it really warranted…after all Ireland's not that big surely we can't get lost…maybe we should" I decided to be sure, to be sure (pun intended) to pay the money and hire ...