I woke up the next morning to discover the shower on my floor was not working and I was forced to use the shower on a lower floor. This was very disappointing because the shower on my floor of the building was in good shape and there was a small lake in the one open shower room downstairs. I coped with this by making sure nothing touched the floor aside from the shower sandals I was very glad I remembered for this trip. Incidentally, it didn’t take me very long to shower that morning, since there was running water, but none of it was hot. That day had set a bad precedent very early in its development.

After hitting a laundromat for a much needed cleansing of my duds (it occurred to me how odd it was that the last thing I would do in Dublin is fold my underwear) I headed to the train station. My plan was to take the train up to Belfast in order to absorb the scenery along the Irish coast, then take the ferry across to Scotland and spend my night in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, depending on my whims.

After a proper scenery soaking and summary arrival in Belfast, as well as a sharing of a cab with some women who had gone to Creighton (I found out it’s in Omaha, Nebraska) and were then attending Trinity College, we all arrived at the ferry terminal and I found out something very interesting. That being that Northern Irish don’t like the rest of Ireland. I mean they REALLY don’t like it. One of the women I had shared the cab with asked the cabby if she could use Irish punts. She was scornfully informed that punts weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Looking back on things now, I believe this is point where my day entered the homestretch toward disaster. However, to give a good explanation of why, I must provide a little history. To keep things relatively short, we shall begin around 1688. Any British folk who know what I’m talking about can feel free to do something else for the next few paragraphs. Perhaps some needlepoint.

The Jacobites, under what used to be King James II, had decided to remove the first half of the title Former King from James II’s nom de guerre by deposing the king who had replaced him. Then-Current King William III did not approve of this plan at all, despite James II’s arguments in its favor, so they decided to square off for the title of King in a contest of Massive Bloodshed.

Since James II was Catholic and had generally been very tolerant during his reign (and thus his removal from office), he decided to land in Ireland, rally the troops there and further gather the support of the Tories, whatever the hell those are, back in England. James II’s force consisted of French Catholic and Irish troops who somehow thought this was important. The Whigs, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the opposite of Tories", rallied behind William III and, in a fit of martial valor, rushed to hire Dutch Blue Guards, French Huguenots, and Danish, Prussian, Finnish, and Swiss mercenaries to go fight and die for England. All English, of course, were declared ineligible for this battle because it was not in China, India or South Africa, where any self-respecting Englishman goes to die for his country.

To the point: The Battle of the Boyne. On July 1, 1690 in the north of Ireland, William III stopped James II’s advance on the banks of the Boyne River and summarily chased him out of Ireland. This is significant because it officially marked the end of America’s ability to make any sense out of British history.

Now then, we fast-forward to more modern times and the year 1795. The Orange Order, so named because King William III’s nickname was William of Orange, was formed as a secret society to combat the Irish Catholic notion of self-governance through lobbying, beating, petitioning, and killing. This society spread throughout Britain and the Dominion and, as with any large secret society, if failed to become in any way secret. So the Orange Order decided to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne every year on July 12, the anniversary of the Battle of Aughrim (please note utter bewilderment from sea to shining sea), by marching through the Catholic neighborhoods of Belfast, Northern Ireland and proving once and for all that the Orange Order is filled with a bunch of assholes. This is known as Marching Season. This is also known as the absolute worst time possible to be in Belfast.

Marching Season is well-known as a time when the Catholics living in Northern Ireland don’t take kindly to Protestants taunting them for losing a 17^th century battle every damn year, so tensions run high. Most of violence you hear about coming from Northern Ireland happens in Belfast right around then. However, this year, the government of Northern Ireland decided enough was enough, so they put up barricades preventing the Orange Order from marching through their streets, inciting violence, draining military and police resources and making a general nuisance of themselves. The Orangemen (makes you look at Syracuse in a different light, doesn’t it?), as they are also called, did not take kindly to this and all manner of loud demonstrations took place. The paramilitary portions of the Orange Order were the most enduring image of this year’s festivities due to them lighting bonfires, firing weapons into the air and making incendiary speeches to the assembled masses. However, they didn’t get into the city proper, so they were loud and obnoxious in the middle of a field instead of loud and obnoxious in the middle of a city, which is a serious improvement, unless you happen to be a woodchuck.

Well, Marching Season winds ends on July 12^th and I was just missing it by a day as I traveled through Belfast. This was actually key to my plan, since I really had no desire to be in Belfast during that time. Here’s the mathematical error I made: I was going through the city on July 13^th. Guess who was going home?

I arrived at the ferry terminal to find a horde of people sitting in the waiting area, which I found strange, since there hadn’t been very many people on my previous crossing. It was then that I noticed a few of these people were smoking, despite the fact the waiting area was designated as being non-smoking. This was the first hint that something was amiss with this crowd, but I decided not concern myself over it.

As we made the crossing, it quickly became clear that, in fact, every single one of these people smoked. And I really do mean everybody. The men, the disproportionately few women, the teenagers and one ten year-old kid who I saw firing up a butt. These folks even seemed to be making a point of standing right next to the "No Smoking" signs posted throughout the ship and lighting up. Every so often one of the people working on the ship would single somebody out and make him put out his cigarette, which he would usually do on the carpet. Then he would light another one as soon as his "persecutor" was gone. These people were unsavory sorts, but I decided I was not going to let it bother me.

Upon mercifully arriving in Stanraer, Scotland and waiting to disembark, one of these cocksuckers began singing some incomprehensible song of which I could only make out, "Fuck those (something) bastards," while everybody began smoking even more. At this point, I thought they were coming back from a soccer game. I also began to find these people pretty annoying. That would change. Soon enough, I would absolutely hate them.