The old bridge linking Killaloe and Ballina on the Shannon. The council didn’t make it clear to locals that the new bridge would require all traffic to be removed from the old one. Photograph: iStock
To understand the history and culture of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, start with The Bridge on the Drina. By Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric, this Balkan epic tells a five-century tale about the Bosnian town of Visegrad through the eyes of its different ethnic groups who lived on either side of this wonderful Ottoman bridge.
Spanning the river Drina, the multi-arched bridge united the divided local tribes. The Serbs on one side of the river and the Muslims on the other had different allegiances, customs, familial and political loyalties but the bridge brought them together in love, tragedy, business and the everyday comings and goings of life. The bridge over the Drina served as a symbol of co-operation, unity and common history in an otherwise troubled region.
In another troubled region of the world, on the shores of Lough Derg, the warring factions of Clare an
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