A FEW DAYS IN "NORN IRON"

Sunday July 27th
Today we flew to Belfast, courtesy of Aer Lingus. It only takes fifty five minutes and we landed at the International Airport about 35 minutes out of the city. By the time we had checked in, we still had a few hours before dinner so we hopped one of those hop on hop off sightseeing buses and got a bit of a taste of the city. Actually this city is quite compact (population 300,000) and full of charm. It’’s streets are mostly wide with plenty of trees in the suburbs. Our bus took us past rows of elegant houses with well kept gardens as well as the more industrialised areas like the docklands and the famous Harland Wolfe shipyard. These days they only refurbish oil rigs, but in their heyday they built some of the world’s great liners, among them of course, the Titanic. Our guide said it might seem odd that Belfast is so proud of the Titanic, given its fate. But as she put it, “It was allright when it left here.”
We drove on through tree lined streets bedecked with masses of Union Jacks and Ulster Loyalist flags, the city having recently celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, highlight of what they cal, the marching season.
We saw the parliament building of Stormont, a huge mausoleum of a building set in extensive grounds against a background of the mountains which look down on Belfast. Driving back into the city, we crossed the River Lagan and passed the beautiful Tudor style buildings of Queens University, then through the commercial centre of town, a mixture of fine old bank buildings and more modern centres, including one owned by Westfield. Then into West Belfast and the Ardoyne where we saw something of past troubles! There was the old court house, the former prison of Crumlin Road, and many of those threatening and triumphal wall murals which shout the cause of Catholic Republican, and Protestant Loyalist causes. More on that later!
In the evening we enjoyed a good dinner in the dining rooms of the Crown Bar, a lovely old pub with embossed tiling all over its outer walls, and an equally elegant old bar inside. Thanks to some training from friends back home (you know who you are) we coped quite well with the distinctive accent here, and the constant references to “wee this”and “wee that”.
As the barmaid said, “What’ll yiz have. I’ll just be a wee minute lov, and bring yiz the wee menu”, or something like that.
July 28th
On the Monday morning we boarded a bus for an unforgettable drive right up the east coast to the Giant’s Causeway. Our route took us along the Antrim Road beside the waters of Belfast Lough through little towns and villages, many still with the flags out. We passed places with names like Newtownabbey, Jordanstown, White Abbey and Monkstown. Our first stop was in a seaside town of Carrickfergus which is dominated by Carrickfergus Castle, a grim Norman Castle whose ramparts look out across the Irish Sea. It was apparently the key castle responsible for the Anglo Norman hold on Ulster back in the twelfth century. Over its 800 year history it’s been besieged by the Scots, the Irish, the English and the French. It’s been a castle, an armoury, a prison and even an air raid shelter.
As we drove on up the coast we entered the area known as the Glens of Antrim. There are nine of them, the largest being a magnificent vista running down towards the coast, called Glenariff, Queen of the Glens.
Our journey took us further north to the famous Carrick-a-Reed rope bridge. This is a bridge connecting the tiny island of Carrick-a-Reed to the mainland. It’s quite short but it spans a very nasty drop to the sea, and was originally installed to enable salmon fishermen to gain access to where they processed their catch.
Barbara and I walked the kilometre along a perilous looking pathway to where we joined a queue of people waiting to cross, eight at a time. When it was our turn, we both stepped onto the bridge in some trepidation. It was a real challenge to keep going with the bridge rocking and the wind blowing and that awful drop to the sea below us. We talked to each other, encouraging each other along until a bunch of young people decided to play the fool at the end of the bridge behind us. The thing started to sway and I almost lost it, just a few metres from the end. Now I don’t usually make scenes but such was the tenseness of the moment, I shouted very loudly; “STOP FUCKING ABOUT!”
Seconds later we were both on firm ground and joining the queue to cross back again. We accomplished that with less fuss and rejoined our bus, feeling proud that we had conquered our fears. We’ll not be doing that again!
Further along the road, we reached the site of yet another ancient castle, Dunluce. This one is a dramatic ruin which sits out on a headland. Bits of it have actually fallen into the sea as the cliff receded over centuries. The castle itself is medieval but it stands on the site of an ancient Irish fort going back to Viking times.
Our next point of interest was a town called Bushmills. You may have heard of it. They make whiskey there. In fact they’ve made whiskey there for hundreds of years. It is the oldest distillery in Ireland, if not the world. And as a non whiskey drinker, I have to say that what they make there is pure nectar. It is like sipping liquid velvet and when it reaches your insides it warms you to your very depths. The world becomes your best friend. I might have another one some day.
Suitably buoyed by the Bushmills, we finally reached our objective by mid afternoon and looked down to the beach some hundreds of feet below, to the Giant’s Causeway. It took another half hour to clamber down a narrow pathway to the strange rock formations which comprise the “causeway “
This phenomenon was caused over many millennia as an enormous bed of lava cooled very very slowly, and rather like mud cracks when it dries out, thousands and thousands of hexagonal basalt pipes were formed. Actually they’re not all hexagonal. Some have eight sides, some six and four, and one is said to have only three. They didn’t tell us which one.
It was time to head back to Belfast again and by the time we got there, having walked for miles and clambered about like mountain goats, we were pretty tired. We had dinner that evening at the Europa Hotel. I remember the Europa Hotel from the seventies when I worked at the BBC in London. It was where most of the media stayed while covering the troubles of that time. I know some of you reading this will know that it had the dubious distinction of being the most bombed hotel in Ireland. All up it suffered from 23 explosions in its vicinity during those years.
I’m pleased to say it is still doing good food and wine.
July 29th
It was a rather overcast morning when we arose on the Tuesday. We wanted to visit the famed Mountains of Mourne...the ones that “sweep down to the sea” in the well known song.
We learned that the best way of doing this was to take a bus to the coastal town of Newcastle and then join a local bus which did a regular run through various towns around the mountains. We were advised to buy a ticket called a summer rambler which would cover the whole trip for seven quid each. Good value!
The bus ride to Newcastle took us south of Belfast this time through some very fashionable looking suburbs and on through towns and farming country, through Ballynahinch and Dundrum and finally to the sea. From Newcastle we joined a smally bus driven by a maniacal man with a crewcut, who seemed to think he was driving in the Mountains of Mourne Grand Prix. Over the next 45 minutes our bus climbed up into these beautiful mountains through glens and farmland until the trees gave way to open heath disappearing into low cloud and swirling mist. Then we swung down again and into a valley called The Silent Valley. This is the site of a major Northern Irish dam. Even though there were quite a few visitors around, the place certainly was aptly named. Barb and I took a long rambling nature walk through tall firs and spruce with a carpet of pine needle deadening the sound. That plus the mist made the whole place a truly “Silent Valley”.
By around half past two it was time to pick up the local bus again, and go streaking down the valley along winding roads at breakneck speed until we reached the coast again. And then back to the seaside town of Newcastle, where we had time to recover on the beach front before connecting with the bus for Belfast. In fact the walk on the beach was a break really because it was the one vantage point from which we could really see those “mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.”
Dined again at the Europa. Bed!
July 30th
It was our last day in Northern Ireland, and of course we could not leave without seeing something of the recent history here. We knew the names, the Falls Road, the Ardoyne, the Shankill Road, the Crumlin Prison and so on. These days you can travel these places in safety, In fact they are a sort of grim tourist attraction. It’s the thing to take ä “black taxi tour.”
So that’s what we did and it turned out to be a bit of a curate’s egg.
We did spend an hour and a half driving with our guide, a bloke named Martin, through all those places, stopping at will to take pictures and to look at where so much sadness happened before the Good Friday agreement brought some sort of peace. In fact we saw what is called “the peace line”, an enormous fence which divides the two communities, Catholic and Protestant. It seems a bit of a contradiction to call it a “peace “line, but at least they’re not shooting at one another. I was surprised to learn that there are still crossing points in this fence line which are closed in the evening, and according to our guide, actually closed up on weekends.
This brings me back to our guide! He insisted that his was an objective tour based on historical fact, but I have to say he laced his commentary with a lot of opinion, and there was little doubt about who he saw as the good guys and who the bad guys.
Nevertheless it was very interesting, especially given that when working in London in the seventies, all one ever saw was film of a bombing every day.
We now wish we’d had a bit more time in Northern Ireland. There was so much more to see, especially in the beautiful countryside.

Obviously there are still tensions of a sort in these small sectors of Northern Ireland, but our overall impression that this is a very beautiful part of the world and the people who live here and work here are building a decent society together.
Enough preaching! I’ll take a wee break now and see yiz next time.