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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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One
island, two Irelands Wednesday 2 September. We drive to London Stansted airport for our easyJet flight to Belfast International Airport departing at 11.55am. Belfast airport is relatively small and within 30 minutes of landing we have reclaimed our luggage and we are on our coach heading for Belfast, 20 miles away. We have two hours free time in the city centre, which we spend around the City Hall beside which stands the Dublin(!) Wheel, a small version of the London Eye. We do some shopping and find the Tourist Information Centre, outside which everyone is harassed by men trying to promote the Belfast City Sightseeing open-top bus tours. Later we leave the city for our hotel, the La Mon Country Club Hotel at Castlereagh, 30 minutes’ drive from the centre of Belfast. This hotel was rebuilt after an IRA bomb attack in 1972. It is very comfortable and has a pool and facilities which are available to us, but its location in a rural area makes it difficult to travel around independently. There are 30 of us on a seven-day Travelsphere tour, from Donegal to the Giant’s Causeway. Our tour guide is a police officer on leave! Thursday 3 September. We leave the hotel and pass through the outskirts of Belfast. In some areas there is a profusion of flags, Union Flags alongside those of Ulster, indicating loyalist or unionist areas, in favour of remaining part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland has an area of 315,000 square miles and a population of two million. Belfast has a population of 400,000 and is a modern industrial city. Northern Ireland was created in 1921 when the Republic of Ireland gained independence from the UK. Since that time there have been conflicts between Catholics and Protestants (whose numbers are equal) and between Republicans and Unionists. The ‘troubles’ erupted in 1969 and continued until the Good Friday agreement in 1998, although there are still sporadic incidents. Anyone in Northern Ireland can have a British and/or Irish passport. There has been a high level of investment in Northern Ireland for many years and the largest employer is the Government. The land is very green and fertile, no doubt from the high amount of rainfall. Even during our holiday there was rain on most days, some of it quite heavy, and 2009 saw the wettest summer in 50 years. We travel
west away from Belfast, partly skirting Lough Neagh, at 151 square miles
the largest freshwater lake in the UK. To the south-west is Slieve Donald
in the Mountains of Mourne, the highest point in Ireland at nearly 1000m
(3000 ft). We stop at Belleek Pottery for a visit. The pottery was begun in 1887. The pieces produced are particularly fine and delicate. 65% is exported to the USA and Canada and much is sold on the QVC satellite channel. The massive pottery is full of goods but there is only a skeleton staff; owing to the recession they are on a three-day week. A 25-minute tour shows us the various stages in production, after which there is time for shopping, lunch and a visit to the small village of Belleek which stands beside the River Erne; on the other side of the river is the Republic of Ireland. On a hill overlooking the bridge which takes us into County Donegal are the remains of an ancient toll house. We soon pass through Ballyshannon, the oldest town in Ireland. We visit Donegal Town which is built around a square called the Diamond. We go to the small castle, built about 1474 (€4). Some of our group travel along the river (€15) but we choose to do some souvenir shopping. The shops in Donegal are very pleasant. Late afternoon we continue to our hotel, the family run Nesbitt Arms in Ardara (Ard an Rátha), where we spend the next three nights. In Ardara the shops and houses are all painted in two strong contrasting colours. Outside town centres, where there are houses, most people live in bungalows which are meticulous, with small neat lawns, a few plants here are there, but there is rarely anyone actually tending them. Friday 4 September. Today we take an excursion to Glenveagh National Park (€32). The roads are bumpy as we are crossing some of the 4633 square miles of bogland. We drive along the spectacular Atlantic Coast, stopping at the Cnoc Fola (Bloody Foreland, derived from the colour of the cliffs in the setting sun) near Gweedore for a photo stop. This area is Irish speaking, but all names are in Irish and English. We have a photo stop in the Poison(ed) Glen. The valley was caused by an ancient glacier. Its original name in Irish was Gleann Neamh, Heavenly Glen, as the local people imagined it to be like heaven. But an English cartographer called it Gleann Neimhe, neimhe meaning poison, so this name appeared on the map. We continue past numerous peat bogs, where peat is cut and left to dry in plastic bags, to Glenveagh National Park, Ireland’s largest. Shuttle buses take us to the little Glenveagh Castle, built in 1870 as a hunting lodge and once owned by John Adair who in 1861 evicted all 244 tenants on the estate when some of his sheep went missing. The tenants were innocent; the remains of the sheep were found in the house of his head gamekeeper. The property is now owned by the State. Visitors with time to spare can go for long walks in the park. Golden eagles, previously extinct in Ireland, have been reintroduced successfully in recent years. Saturday 5 September. Today we have another excursion, to Slieve League and Glencolumbkille (€36). Our first stop is in Killybegs, Ireland’s busiest fishing village. The town has a carpet factory which has supplied carpets to 10 Downing Street and the International Space Station. Presumably the Irish know the reason for a carpet where there is zero gravity. Our next stop is at Slieve League (Sliabh Liag), a 595 metre mountain which overlooks the sea at spectacular cliffs, spoilt today by cloud. After lunch we continue to Glencolumbkille, a seaside village whose name means the valley of St Columba, a 6th century saint. We should have a visit to the Folk Village here, but last night a member of staff died so the site has been closed today as a mark of respect. However, the gates are not locked and we can look around the half dozen cottages which represent rural life at various times between 1700 and 1900, including a school room, although we cannot go inside. The Folk Village owes its existence to Father James MacDyer from Glenties, a town 30km away. Glencolumbkille had been suffering from emigration by the villagers and he built the museum in recent years to attract visitors. The road back to Ardara through the Glengeish Pass has several extremely tight bends, but the view along the valley is magnificent. Back in Ardara we visit a tweed factory, where there is a demonstration on a loom. Walking into the village we encounter a wedding party driving along with considerable horn-blowing and revelry. The Irish know how to enjoy themselves! We also visit an exhibition of old photographs in a visitor centre near the hotel. Sunday 6 September. We leave Ardara travelling north-east, back into Ulster, where our first stop is Londonderry, or, for the Republicans, Derry. Men looking for women should head for this city, as there are four women for every man! The city has been inhabited since the 6th century and probably earlier. It was named ‘Durra’ by St Columba, meaning ‘oak grove’. It stands on the banks of the River Royle, which is the religious and political divide; the east bank is Protestant, the west bank Catholic. The city has complete early 17th century walls, more than one mile (2km) long, but our guided city tour takes us away from them. Frederick Augustus Harvey (from Ickworth, near Bury St Edmunds, a property we had visited a few weeks ago) became bishop of Derry in the 17th century. He had a girlfriend on the opposite side of the river and it took him three exhausting days to travel to see her, so he built the first bridge across the river. In the Loyalist area flags are flying for the marching season. We are told there are only three months here – January, February and March, March, March…! We even pass through an interface area, where Catholic and Protestant houses face each other on opposite sides of the road. There is a Catholic cathedral, built in 1875, and a Protestant one, built in 1628. Queen Elizabeth I and James I brought over Londoners and granted them land to colonise the land. James I granted a city charter and changed the name from Derry to Londonderry. Catholic King James II arrived in 1688, expecting a welcome, but instead 13 Protestant apprentices stole the city’s keys and locked the Jacobites out. Supporters of King William III, who deposed James II, joined the apprentices and swarmed into the city. The Jacobites besieged Londonderry for 105 days, the longest siege in British history, reducing the population to eating rotten horsemeat, dogs and rats and 25% of them died owing to starvation. When offered the chance to surrender they hoisted a flag saying ‘No Surrender’ which has become the symbol of the Protestant cause. The Jacobites eventually retreated. This stand is celebrated by Loyalist and apprentice marches; the first Apprentice Boys’ march took place on 12 August 1969, followed by a three-day battle. There is a fine Guildhall, which contains Europe’s largest musical organ. We pass into the Bogside area where the ‘Troubles’ began in 1969. There are several splendid murals to the troubles and the leaders. During the troubles, if a woman wanted to meet a man she had to go to the riots, but the men wore masks so they often ended up with an ugly man. We also pass a monument to Bloody Sunday, where 13 marchers were killed by soldiers. This one event caused membership of the IRA to triple. From Londonderry we drive via Portrush, where the annual air display is in progress and we watch four light aircraft performing acrobatic feats, and the ruins of the 16th century Dunluce Castle, precariously perched on a cliff and slowly crumbling into the sea. There is a brief stop at Bushmills, the world’s oldest legal whisky distillery, founded in 1608; some itineraries include a tour of the distillery, but not ours. Our next stop is at the Giant’s Causeway, which consists of about 40,000 mostly hexagonal basalt pillars, formed 60 million years ago but a volcanic eruption. One popular legend says that the Giant Finn MacCool built it to walk from Ulster to the Scottish island of Staffa, where there is a similar site but smaller. The Giant’s Causeway has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. A narrow road leads to the immense site (a shuttle bus makes the journey quicker at £1 each way), where visitors can walk over the pillars at leisure. Finally we conclude the day’s drive at the La Mon Hotel, Castlereagh, near Belfast, for the final two nights. Monday
7 September. Today is mainly sunny for our sightseeing tour of Belfast.
Belfast is such a modern city that only one of its hotels is more than
13 years old. We pick up our guide near the City Hall, built in 1906;
the tallest of its copper domes is as high as the Titanic. Not far away
the Victoria Square shopping mall has the biggest atrium in Western Europe. We pass the railway station. The Belfast to Dublin service is out of action as ten days ago there was subsidence on the line in north Dublin. We continue into the Titanic quarter in the docks, currently being redeveloped with luxury apartments and a new hotel planned to open for the centenary of the Titanic. (The official launch date for the Titanic was 31 May 1911. It was completed on 2 April 1912 and at the time it was the largest man-made moveable object in the world. It sailed from Southampton, calling at Cobh en route for New York, and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912.) We pass Belfast’s City Airport, renamed in honour of George Best for his 60th birthday. Then we continue to a suburb to see Stormont (meaning Parliament of the windy hill). Red-twigged lime trees line the mile-long straight driveway to the building, which was constructed in 1932. The grounds are a public park. In front stands a monument, built in 1932, to Ulster Unionist MP Edward Henry Carson (died 1935), the only person to have been given a state funeral in St Anne’s cathedral. Belfast is overlooked by a hill which is said to resemble Napoleon’s face. Jonathan Swift used it as an idea for Gulliver’s Travels. Halfway up the hill is Belfast Castle, dating from 1870, built as the residence of the Donegall family, with a similar design to Balmoral in Scotland. It was donated to the city in 1934 and now contains council offices as well as being used for official functions. After a coffee stop at Belfast Castle we return to the city to see the fortress-like Falls Road (Falls means hedges) and Shanklin Road areas, still walled and patrolled by para-military forces. London taxis serve these catholic and Protestant areas but only travel into them when full. Many houses have security bars at the windows. The sightseeing tour ends in the centre. Our itinerary states we should be free in the afternoon. But, apart from two of our group who want to spend more time in the centre, we have all spent long enough and choose to visit the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, two separate museums with a single ticket. The Folk Museum is rather similar to that at Beamish near Durham and consists of numerous buildings brought from other parts of Ulster, including two churches, a bank, shops, police station, sweet shops, post office and so on. The Transport Museum contains a vast variety of forms of transport from ancient times to the modern day. Horse-drawn trams, cars (including a De Lorean, made in Northern Ireland), aircrafts (including Shorts craft, also made in Ulster), a flight simulator and an extensive Titanic exhibition. Tonight is our last night. Several of us, keen to sample a traditional night of Irish music, take a taxi to the Crown Bar to visit the only National Trust pub, which still uses gas for lighting. Then, after a drink there, we go next door to Fibber Magee for Irish music and songs. A duo plays fiddle or keyboard and guitar and sing. The place is crowded, but some of us manage to squeeze on to the dance floor. One lady among our group is keen to join the action and is offered a bodhrán (type of drum) to accompany the players. It’s great fun, but it’s just a shame that the entertainment starts so late, after 10pm. Tuesday 8 September. We visit Carrickfergus, the oldest town in County Antrim. We go to the fascinating Norman Castle, built in 1177 and in use until 1928 when it was donated to the Government and opened to the public. Various models around the castle show soldiers in costumes through the ages. There is then free time in the town for final souvenir shopping. Late afternoon:
time to drive to the airport. Oh joy! We soon discover that our flight
is delayed by three hours, because easyJet didn’t have a plane for
our flight. Instead of arriving home by 9pm, it is almost midnight when
we do. |