Northern Ireland

We were in N. Ireland from August 13-19, 2005. The blue dots represent some of the highlights. Below are some scenes and castles from this trip. I did not add large photos unless you see an * beside the name. If you would like to have a hi res picture, email me and I will send you one.

Scenery

Belfast Belfast is a city of contrasts. One one hand you have bombings, fighting and solders in the streets with automatic rifles and armored vechicles. On the other hand it has pleasent people and old world beauty.

The otherside of Belfast

If you look closely you can see a church steeple

just over Sandy and Melissa heads on the right. It is the church

Sandy's parents were married in.

These wall paintings are one block from the home we we staying in. All though there was no real trouble, the last night of our stay the British army had six armored land rovers and about twenty soldiers with machine guns parked on the street out side our house. The soldiers were lining to street with small children running around climbing in the back of the land rovers and playing games around the soldiers. The soldiers were at full alert and you had the feeling something was about to happen. We found out later it was probably a raid on a suspected IRA or UDA or UFF hideout. On the streets of Belfast it is better than it used to be, but we still saw aromered cars, police stations that were forified beyond befief, soldiers in the streets with automatic weapons, protecting armored car deliveries to banks. So, although things are better, it is still a city under seige.