Image of the day – 52 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

The old cannon in today’s photo dates to the time of the Battle of the Boyne (1690), near the Irish town of Drogheda on the east coast north of Dublin. The battle took place between James II, the final Stuart King of England who was attempting to win back his throne from George III, the first Hanoverian King. But it was a battle of huge significance across the whole of Europe, because both the Catholic Stuarts and the Protestant Hanoverians were backed by various European powers. There were troops from many European states on the battlefield.

George III won the battle and remained the King of England. But the consequences were multinational in nature.

We see the same sorts of thing in the Ukraine/Russia war, it’s not just two national armies pitted against one another. Russia is supported to a greater or lesser degree by China, India, Iran, North Korea, Mongolia, Belarus, and others. Ukraine is supported by most European nations, by the EU, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others. All of these other countries, to a greater or lesser degree, will be affected by the eventual outcome.

Sometimes it seems the world is incapable of living peacefully. The never-ending struggles between good and evil, for example, or truth and lies, or kindness and cruelty, run far deeper than clashes over which king will rule a particular country. Unfortunately evil, lies and cruelty are often employed as levers and instruments of war (as in the current Russia/Ukraine conflict).

I’ll predict one thing, either Russia or Ukraine will lose this war. I fervently hope and pray that the loser will be the nation that has deployed the most evil, lies and cruelty. We can do with less of those things (though realistically they’ll always be present at some level in human societies).

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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