I'm off to Belfast a week tomorrow, and I'll be spending the first 3 days cycling across N.Ireland ,before heading into the Republic and doing the Co. Mayo, Connemara and Galway regions, before heading back towards Belfast for the overnight boat home. I could be away almost a month. Tbh although I come from a non-conformist Protestant background(Wesleyan/Methodist) of around 200 years I've absolutely NO TIME whatsoever for the so-called 'Loyalist' sectarian bigots in the Province, or far Right Wing trash like the DUP. Although I hated the IRA(and still do) it was the totally unjust 2nd class citizen status afforded to Catholics there that helped stoke the fires, and trouble. I've been to Belfast on a number of occasions now and it shocked me seeing the amount of Union Jack's on lampposts and the triumphalism displayed...they can't seem to resist rubbing it in and provoking the large Nationalist/Catholic population there!
. You still see armoured police Land Rover's on the streets there too! I'd seen stuff on the news and in newspapers, but it still doesn't fully prepare you! It's a beautiful but bizarre place...like a bit of white South Africa, pre Mandela, transplanted into the UK! Although yesterday's result wasn't unexpected I smiled...it's now time for the DUP to grow up, stop acting like classroom bullies, babies, and throwing their toy's out of the pram because they can't get their way. Swallow their pride and help form a working coalition government there...the place desperately needs stable government! At the end of the day it's hardly the bloody Taliban they're being asked to form a coalition with FFS!