Each town or neighborhood leaves no confusion where it stands. The sidewalk curbs are painted either red, white and blue or green, orange and white to let you know where their sympathies lie.
This is the town of Bushmill's just before I visited the distillery.

On to Belfast

Inviting reminder that you might not be welcome in their neighborhood.

Armored police vehicle

I must confess that my great-grandmother was Scots Irish and my grandmother grew up wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day. All through high school and college, I kept myself well read on the issues in Northern Ireland (and things were a lot more violent then). I also considered myself quite pro-Protestant. But the visit to Belfast changed me.

Certainly both sides bear tremendous responsibility, but the actions of the British Army and Police have been shameful. This billboard show the distance that protestors we standing from police when shot and killed by rubber bullets. Also visiting Derry or Londonderry (depending on your persuasion) was chilling, as there is a Good Friday Massacre Memorial. All in all, the Unionists and IRA are reactionaries at this point and need to be marginalized. Oh wait, aren't McGuinness and Paisley about to take over....

This is actually back in the ROI, but chronologically I visited here on the way back to Dublin to fly to Bristol.

Newgrange Megalithic Tombs

The light of the winter solstice shines perfectly down this roof box into the tomb to illuminate it for 17 minutes. Built in 3200 BC. Incredible what we could do so long ago.