A Dee Tour 2

To Limerick

We eventually headed west out of town, towards county Kerry, from where our relative tour was based.

Cruising through the city on our way out.

The burbs. Dublin's pretty small, with only a million people living there. 999,000 of them are drunk at any one time.

It didn't take us long to get outa town, and, just as Gerry had predicted the night before, the weather got better as we headed west. I hadn't believed him, thinking it was just the pride talking, or the Guinness.

Our rendezvous point with Gerry and Monica was Barack Obama Plaza, named after the hip ex-President, who visited there once upon a time, when some local Irishman proved he had Irish blood in him.

Well, we probably all have Irish blood in us, because we all know that those Irish Catholics breed like rabbits and migrate like rats. But that's another matter.

I really don't know what to say about this except that it really is a strange world sometimes.

He looks so Irish.

Yeah yeah, I know. Irish people come in all colours, shapes and sizes these days.

Troubled

After the Republic of Ireland won independence in 1916, the northern part of the country, Northern Ireland, known locally as the "Six Counties", remained a territory of the UK, as some people within that part of the country, generally the descendants of original Protestant colonists, were staunchly loyal to the English.

What followed was bloody sectarian and communal violence between the Catholic Irish nationalists and the Protestant unionists, especially in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.

For 50 years, Northern Ireland was ruled by various Unionist pro-British governments, and supported by the army. Discrimination against Catholics continued, and in the late 1960s a move to end this discrimination resulted in what became known as The Troubles, a 30-year conflict involving republican paramilitary forces, such as the Provisional IRA, fighting against unionist forces such as the Ulster Volunteer Force, which was supported by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the cops) and the British Army.

The violence claimed over 3,500 lives, over half of which were civilians, and injured over 50,000 others, mainly in Northern Ireland. But the killings also spilled over into the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

The length of the list of dead Irish, who were senselessly killed by either pro-UK or pro-nationalist forces, is heart wrenching. Over half were civilians.

The dead also included Lord Mountbatten, the uncle of Queen Elizabeth II's husband, who was blown to kingdom come whilst on a boat trip on holidays in Ireland in 1979. The IRA also bombed military ceremonies in London's Hyde Park, killing four soldiers and seven members of the military band. I remember seeing photographs of dead horses as a kid.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement, a multi-party agreement between most of Northern Iteland's political parties, and between the governments of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, finally ended most of the violence.

It resulted in the establishment of a more devolved Northern Irish parliament, which now operates with a degree of autonomy from Westminster, which is the UK parliament. But Northern Ireland is still officially very much a part of the UK.

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, have now become the most popular party in Northern Ireland, and there's talk of a new political move towards independence from the UK, and eventual union with the Republic of Ireland. But who knows when, or if, that will ever really happen.

"Yes we can!" (skull a whole pint of Guinness).

Believe it or not, but there have been at least 23 US Presidents who can prove Irish heritage, including JFK, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, Bill Clinton and even Sleepy Joe Biden. Trump probably has Irish blood too, but no one's talking about that around here.

St Patrick is one of the most famous Irish people of all time. Shame he isn't Irish.

Olaf, who was named after me

He really is a devil isn't he. This was in the ladies. Don't ask me what I was doing in there, but at least I got to see how creatively lipstick can be used sometimes.

After meeting Monica and Gerry, and eating some overpriced snacks, we kept heading west.

We ended up at the University of Limerick, where Michael's great great great grandfather, who apparently was also great, had been head gardener at this estate, before it became part of the University.

On the occasion of being in Limerick, I needed to write a limerick. It took me whole minutes to come up with it:

There once was a trio from Oz

Who couldn't work out where they was

They'd drunk so much Guinness

And lost all their thinness

N'that's all I can think of, so soz

The Limerick University grounds were beautiful, and the original estate building, Plassey House, was full of fine things, including a very swish restaurant, an art collection, and various precious old stuff.