Martello Tower - Plains of Abraham

 This is for Codsticker :)

In 2024, Arthur and I visited Quebec City.  One of the places we explored was a Martello Tower on the Plains of Abraham, which has since been transformed into a museum.  It is set up as it would have been back in the 19th century, under the control of a Royal Artillery garrison.  It is very compact, with living quarters for the gun crew, and a platform for their guns.

Living quarters on the main floor.  The only door is halfway up the side of the tower.  Now there is a stair leading up to it, but back in the day they would have had a ladder that could be pulled inside to make it harder for enemies to storm!

Stores and a water supply on the lower floor.

And the big gun up on the upper floor. 

Fantastic view of the St Laurence River.

 Love the cutaway showing the powder, wadding and shot!

Bonus photo - cutaway model of the Martello Tower from the Plains of Abraham museum.

Irish Holiday Part 9 - Newry

 For our last stop in Northern Ireland, we spent a day and a night in Newry.  We had a day before we needed to be back in Dublin for our flight back to Vancouver.  After a bit of discussion, Arthur said that he wanted to see Narrow Water Castle.  I was curious about his interest in this castle, but agreed.  It's quite a magnificent-looking tower, dating back to the 16th Century, but was not open on the day of our visit. 

We carried on from Narrow Water into the seaside town of Warrenpoint, where we had a lovely late breakfast/early lunch at the Bric Bagel Cafe.  We had a great view of the Republic just across the Lough. 

Beautiful waterfront, mix of sandy beaches and rocky shoreline.

We hopped onto the bus back to Newry, took in the Newry museum and had a wander of the town.  Then back to our B&B.

The next day we took the train back to Dublin.  We had a shopping day, picking up a few souvenirs and gifts for the folks back home, and that was it for our Irish adventure.

Irish Holiday Part 8 - Belfast t'other day

For our second day exploring Belfast, we focussed on visiting a few specific places.  Arthur wanted to see the Irish Republican History Museum which had been closed the previous day, so we set out for a lovely breakfast at a café nearby, the Wholly Ground Coffee House.  Throughout our Irish holiday, ot was surprisingly challenging to find breakfast places that matched our schedule.  We had great breakfasts at our Dublin hotel (Kilronan House), but the rest of the time it was a bit of a gamble. On the way there we found this mural linking Northern Ireland Unionists with Israel.

The Irish Republican History Museum was tucked away in a little hole in the wall, a mad jumble of artifacts and a very nice little library.  It was a contrast to the multi-media interpretive centre we'd visited earlier at St Comgall's on Divis Street.  

Example of a Cumann na mBan uniform.

Royal Ulster Constabulary uniform with ADRIC bonnet, next to an Irish Volunteer or Irish Citizen Army uniform (we are not sure which, as they had more or less the same uniforms!).

Button detail!  Royal Ulster Constabulary

Propaganda!

I explained to Arthur why I appreciated the punny nature of this mural.  First, I proved that explaining a pun makes it less effective.  Secondly, I proved that I didn't know that 18th-century writer Jonathan Swift is associated with Dublin, not Belfast, and that this Swift Quarter actually celebrates the birds!

We next made our way to Ulster University to visit the Ulster Museum.  Absolutely gorgeous campus!

I recognised the name on this statue :)

Signs in the Ulster Museum are in three languages:  English, Gaelic and (?) Scots!?!  The Scots is a bit surreal to me.  I can sound it out and make sense of it, but I'm not used to seeing it written out like that!

Heh heh heh.  "FAP".  

The Ulster Museum has both art and history, and these dragons were inspired by Game of Thrones, partially filmed in Northern Ireland.

From the Ulster Museum, we walked across Belfast to the port, where we visited HMS Caroline, a WWI-era light cruiser that is the only surviving vessel from the Battle of Jutland.

Next, we visited the Titanic Belfast, which is more of an "experience" than a museum.  It's great, loads of multi-media presentations, even a ride where patrons are carried across a recreation of the ship being assembled.  This is my only photo from Titanic Belfast, a view of the site of the Harland & Wolf slipways where Titanic and her sister ships were built.

We did get to tour Nomadic, which was a White Star tender, a small ship that ferried passengers out to liners such as Titanic.

As mentioned, Belfast celebrates Game of Thrones.  We didn't bother with the studio tour as (unsurprisingly) Arthur hasn't watched the series.  But we did see a couple of these stained glass panels celebrating iconic moments from the show.

Let's finish up Belfast with one last mural!

Irish Holiday Part 7 - Derry/Londonderry

 Arthur and I took the train from Belfast to Derry/Londonderry for a one-day walkabout.  Both names are used, and I will change back and forth between the two in this post.  We crossed the Peace Bridge which is a short walk from the train station along the River Foyle.

Our first stop on the city side of the river was the Guildhall, which is a sort of City Hall for Derry.  It has an interesting history, dating back to when London trade guilds took a lead role in founding Londonderry in the seventeenth century.  The stained glass and dark wood embellishments, plus the giant organ, all combine to make the Guildhall look like an Anglican church or cathedral.  If you can enlarge this photo, you may see that the lower right window has a Canada theme!

The Guildhall is outside the city walls.  Our first stop inside the wall was the tower museum.  It is currently going through a reorganisation, but we enjoyed the presentation on Derry Girls, a three-season sitcom about high school girls growing up in Derry at the tail end of the Troubles in the 1990s.  We watched the show before our trip, so it was fun to see the presentation.  Curiously, as we wandered in, there was a fairly large group of extremely well dressed visitors, including some who gave off a clear plain-clothes police/bodyguard vibe.  Turns out that we were visiting at the same time as the UK's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland!

After spending time with the Derry Girls, we next did a circuit of the Derry City Walls.  These are the only existing complete city walls remaining in Ireland, dating back to the seventeenth century.  The old city of Londonderry was unsuccessfully besieged a few times in its history, and is a major focus for the Orange Order, the primary Loyalist organisation.

A view inside the walled city.

The Irish love their murals, so naturally the Derry Girls have one of their own!

I have lots of photos of Nationalist murals, but the Loyalists have their own, too. 

On the west side, there is development right up to the city walls, but on the east, facing the traditional Catholic area of Bogside, the ground is clear.

Artwork showing the history of the Gaelic name Doire, from which Derry is derived.

At the entrance to Bogside, this is the famous Free Derry Corner, a focus of confrontations between Nationalists and the British Army during the Troubles.  This monument gets repainted frequently, but this is how it looked on our visit.  

More murals in Bogside.

Hands across the divide sculpture promoting reconciliation and an end to the Troubles.

Another busy cat on the prowl.

After our visit to both Nationalist and Unionist museums providing diverse views of Derry/Londonderry history, we headed back to the train station over the double-decker Craigavon Bridge. 

Alas, we did not have time to visit Letterkenny!