How long?

After the rope bridge we headed on to see the Giant's Causeway. According to Mike, the 'geomologists' who claim that the area was formed as a result of lava cooling and contracting into basalt columns are mislead and boring. Instead, the rock formation can be attributed to a local giant named Fionn mac Cumhaill. (a.k.a Finn McCool). I like folktales, so I'll write up the story behind it...

Got distracted by flowers along the way. You're going to have to get used to me taking photos of small irrelevant things sorry. My identification of Irish wildflowers is rooted quite heavily in my recognition of English plants, which itself stems from vague memories of fourteen years ago. (Haha. How smooth was that!) Therefore, I will again gladly defer to anyone with greater botanical knowledge, so feel free to correct naming errors.

These two photos show the Giant's Causeway from the opposite side of the inlet, (if you scroll back up to the first photo of this post, I'm standing on that furthest point), and from right on it. It was cool and all, but there were way too many people and I couldn't deal with the crowds well enough to hang round and have as close a look at the formation as I would have liked to.

Derry.

How many of you know about Bloody Sunday? Possibly a few, it was one event of Irish history that I had heard about. You know what they don't tell us though? Out of the fourteen people that were killed that day, six of them were only 17.

U2's song 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday' is written about this event in a protest against the violence. Much to their dismay though, it was taken up by the IRA as a song for their cause, which led to the band refusing to perform it for many years. Although they were against the shootings, U2 was not trying to inspire an uprising. For those of you who know them, that's why they now begin with "This is not a rebel song" when they perform it.