Hello again from Inishowen Donegal, I am having a great time meeting alot of people, seeing sights here like the Northern point of Ireland and castles dolmens and mass rocks.  Today I went to my first Roman Catholic mass at St Patricks Church.  Yesterday, I went to a Famine Village that a man had made into an educational center.  It was thought provoking to me seeing exhibits depicting the lives of the Irish living in poverty.  There was also an exhibit about the travelers.  Travelers were a group of people like the gypses (from the word egyption) who lived together in caravans because they had nowhere perminit to live.  My friend Mary says there are stories that some of them are decended from the old Kings of Ireland.  There were also exhibits at the museum about republican safe houses and the orange men.  The Orange men were a group of Protestant Scottish settlers planted in Ulster around the time of James 1 on land taken from the catholics because the law that catholics were not allowed to own land.   They took there name from a William of Orange who won a battle against the Catholics in, I think the 17th century.  The Irish Republicans wanted an Independant Ireland and the Orangemen and republicans did not get along.   To this day much as it was hundreds of years ago only 6 counties in the north of Ireland have a significant number of protestants while the rest of Ireland's 26 counties are catholic, and there is still some hostility.  It was a good educational experience and did not seem biased one way or the other despite the fact that the propriter was Irish Catholic himself.  The fighting between the Orange men and the Republicans has got me thinking about how war and poverty are always seem to go hand in hand.  How many wars could be prevented if people aren't so caught up in greed and power?  All over the world it seems like all wars are the same, pointless.  Waste of time money.  There is the issue of justice.  Steeling the land from the catholics was wrong and justice is needed, but the majority of people killed in the fighting were civilians, and negotiations with the intent of settling the issue without hurting anyone could have gotten the same results maybe better, and without the loss of lives, provided the parties were invested above all else in fairness and the lives of the others.  Thats why I think the wars are a waste, and thats how the exhibit made me feel.  It also made me feel like if we think were so smart we should be learning from these things to prevent them from happening again in the future in other countries like Africa and Iraq.  So why are we not?

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Hello from Inishowen on the Northern tip of Ireland.  I had a great easter.  Did you?  I have been eating alot of chocolat as I work on a farm in its second year of transitioning to organic.  This farm is in the same county as the farm I was on last week, Donegal.  Im not exactly sure when it happened or who was responsable, but it was way over a thoulsand years ago that Ireland was divided into 4 provinces of: Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught with the Hill of Tara at the center where the kings were ceremonely seated.  Donegal is one of the 9 counties in Ulster, but is not one of the six counties which are part of Brittan.  I am living with a very nice family a man named John and a woman named Mary and they have 2 children the girl is 11 her name is Shannon, and Shaun is 16.  I am living in a trailer with all the amenities of a 5 start hotel.  I hope you are all well.  I willl send pictures later.  Bye, Micah

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Hi from Derry.
The last few weeks have been very special for me and it was great to work with a very kind family who made me feel very welcome and invited me back to help again any time.  This morning I took the bus into Derry where I will wait to be picked up by another family who will host me while I work on there farm in Malin.  Malin is still in the republic of Ireland, but in order to get there by bus, I had to travel to Derry (also called Londonderry) which is part of Northern Ireland.  So, now Im using a different monitery system agian, the pound.  Ireland uses the Euro while the North of Ireland, who is still part of the Brittish empire, uses the pound.  The pound is worth more then the euro or the dollar right now.  The pound is twice a dollar and 1.5 a euro. 
 
There is a historic part of Derry which is inside of a wall built in the 17th century as a defence and there is an outer part of the city as well.  It is a city with alot of history.  Tonight I am thinking of going to the Irish Pink Floyd at the Performing Arts center and tomorow easter I may go to one of the many decadent cathedrals such as the St Collumbs cathedral built in the 6th century by Saint Columb Cille at the top of a hill in an oak forest which is now part of the city of Derry.  Hope you are all having a nice easter.  Micah

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