Thursday 12 July

Quite a nice day, with good sunny spells. A northeasterly breeze did not prevent the mercury from rising to 15C / 59F. As I type this, the sun has just set, and cloud appears to be increasing. But no rain is in the forecast. Our drought continues.

Three hundred and twenty-four years ago today, the Battle of the Boyne was fought in Ireland. It was basically between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and the strife continues to date. King William of Orange, who had come over from the Low Countries to assume the English throne, had made it his life's work to fight the popery - and his good offices (sarcasm alert) continue to reverberate in 2012. In Northern Ireland, the day is marked by marches by the Orange Order. I refer to this Wikipedia article for further details.

The wee house on Shell Street has disappeared, and is now just a small heap of rubble. Lorries arrived by mid afternoon to cart it all away, and very shortly, it will become an area of hard standing for tanker lorries on the adjacent fuel depot. I don't think the Maclean family, who inhabited the premises between roughly 1861 and 1891, would have expected their domicile to be reduced to a pile of rubble at any stage.
The pictures I put up yesterday were in demand by the local paper today, as their own photographer turned up after the last walls had been knocked down.