It's actually looking to be a lovely day outside here in Derry. Actually, the weather here has been pretty good, considering I'm in Ireland. All-in-all things went really well this week. Things seem to have really come together in Derry this week.
I was able to get a good deal of work done. Priority numero uno. So that was good. I spent 3 days at the Harbour museum looking at the War Memorial collection. I think I have over 1k pictures I took with the old digital camera. Needless to say, I'm glad that I bought those extra camera batteries before I left! I spent Thursday and Friday at the Derry Central Library going through newspapers on microfilm. For the most part these were really helpful and had some good stuff in them. At least I hope so. As with everything, I have no idea until I actually go through everything I've collected.
A number of other positives in terms of research this week: I got an email from a gentleman at the British Legion in Belfast about working there. I had sent an email to someone at Legion HQ in London looking for the Legion archive and he passed my info on to this person in Belfast. So I was able to communicate with him and I should be good to go to check out some Legion records in Belfast. Score! The other development also came via email. I had contacted a professor at King's College London who had written his diss and a book on the British Legion. He wrote me back and not only did he say I had an interesting topic, but gave me some leads on Legion sources. He also mentioned that he had a meeting with the general director of the Legion next week, and that he'd mention my project in case there was anything he missed regarding Ireland in the Legion archive. Very cool.
Next week might slow down a bit, much of which is beyond my control. Today, the 12th of July is a holiday in Northern Ireland, so everything is closed. Monday is a Bank Holiday so everything is closed then too. I had planned to spend some more time at the city library but it's also closed on Tuesday because of the holiday and there is strike action planned, effectively closing the library on Wednesday and Thursday. So it looks like the early part of next week will be spent trying to plan my next move. There are two regimental museums that I didn't think I was going to be able to get to, and now, with a little coordination, I should be able to see at least one, if not both. One is the Royal Inniskillen Fusiliers regimental museum in Enniskillen, and the other is the Royal Irish Fusiliers museum in Armagh. I tried calling both places on Friday, but the curator of each respective museum was out of the office. So we'll see about next week. The RIF museum is closed M-W, so hopefully I can get to the Inniskillen's museum on Wed and his the RIF on Thursday. That would be ideal. But we'll see what happens.
In other news, my credit card finally arrived! After three weeks of errors and other bullshit USAA FINALLY came through. As they say, better late than never. So that's one major obstacle overcome. I can rest a bit easier now.
There's a great traditional Irish pub in town that me and the roommates have frequented this week called Peadar O'Donnell's (hence the lack of postings). They have trad sessions every night and the price of a pint is about $5.20, which is about what you'd pay in the states for a good pint anyway. Even though the exchange rate here is worse, the prices are much more favorable, in general. So far Derry has been the hands down best part of the trip so far. I can see how people can get attached to a place like this. I wish I was back home in Derry, indeed!
All for now. Long weekend ahead. Cheers to all four of my readers!
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