This leg of the trip gave us our first taste of the Irish troubles, the struggle between catholics/Republicans/Nationalists on the one hand and protestants/Loyalists/UK on the other for control of the Northern part of the island . Our route from Westport took us out of the Republic of Ireland and into Northern Ireland. The "oneness" of these two "countries" is demonstrated by the fact that there are no border formalities of any kind, and indeed the only way of telling that we had moved from one to the other was by carefully observing the name (on the road signs) of our destination city. In the Republic it is called Derry, whereas in the north it is officially called Londonderry (and you had better not get it mixed up). We would discover that this is a somewhat superficial manifestation of what to us, as outsiders, seems like a real divide.

Our location in Derry was The City Hotel, right on the water front within easy walking distance of the old city wall and the center of this interesting town.