The next day, 12th of July, is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland, as on that day the Battle of Boyne took place. This requires a short trip into Irish history. The Battle of Boyne took place on the 12th July 1690 and is the reason or basis of the later upcoming conflicts between the catholics and anglicans in Northern Ireland. Every year the Orange Order is celebrating it’s victory over the Irish and the marches that take place on that day have often been the reason for troubles in Northern Ireland during the last years. I was curious if we would see such a march of the Orange Order, but the way to Tollymore Park didn’t lead us near the town and it was unlikely that we would meet them in the park.

The whole day was acompanied by a change of rain and sun, which is the typicall Irish weather and luckily we were mostly underneath the trees and didn’t even need weatherproof jackets and things like that. The Tollymore Forrest Park has a huge range of old and very big trees and a small river running through the park. The park has been founded in the 18th century and some of the trees are still out of that time. The park slightly reaches the Mourne Mountains so that we only had a very small rise to face. The tour lasted until 4 p.m, when we reached Newcastle Town and therefore had the possiblity to take a walk along the beach and drink a coffee. Newcastle town has an excellent coffee by the way. It’s name is „KREM“ and it’s situated on the main street. They also serve the typicall Irish cake and cookies (for everybody who doesn’t like it too sweet, be carefull!)

The day ended in the pub again …