Today Saturday is our second to last full day in Belfast (and the UK & Ireland) so to a certain extent we are winding down.
This morning we walked back into the city for some final shopping stopping en route at the market we went to yesterday.
On the walk back and one street away from where we are staying there was a wall covered in murals supporting the “Protestant” side of the debate. Despite thinking it was/is a Protestant v Catholic fight one of the murals stressed that “they” weren’t anti-Catholic but were anti-unification.
After lunch we drove east (or I think it was east) to the Stormont Estate the home of the Northern Irish parliament. The estate is a large expansive area with the Parliament building sitting impressively atop of the hill with well manicured grounds - it was an impressive sight from the main gate as the building was approximately a mile from that gate.
After walking around for sometime we then went to Ballyhackamore for a coffee but also to find the restaurant where we dined tonight with Neil and family, Neil being the son of friend John mentioned in yesterday’s post.
It was great to catch up with Neil who we last saw in NZ late last year, when he came out to visit John, and also to meet his family for the first time
As we have driven through the island of Ireland there have been a lot of place names beginning with Bally…….. (e.g. Ballyhackamore, Ballymena) which made us Google to find that Bally is derived from the Gaelic “Baile na” and means “place of”.
Tomorrow we have a day trip to Cookstown planned.
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