Northern Ireland May 9-13
BELFAST
History. Starting as a cluster of forts to guard a ford across the River Farset (now underground under High Street), a castle was built in 1170 and the Irish O’Neills controlled the area for centuries. The tiny village didn’t grow until the end of the 17th century when French Huguenots fleeing persecution brought skills that rapidly improved the local linen industry, which in turn attracted new workers and wealth.
In the 18th century, the cloth trade and shipbuilding expanded increasing the population a hundred-fold in 100 years.
The 1798 Rebellion over religious rights was quickly stamped out by the English and most Protestants abandoned the nationalist cause. Presbyterian ministers began to attack the Catholic church, resulting in a sectarian divide. The 19th century saw vigorous commercial and industrial expansion and its population by 1888 was 208,000 exceeding Dublin’s.
Northern Ireland was created with Partition but this ensured that it would become the focus for much of the Troubles. The economic status of the Catholic population was deliberately kept at a low level by a government consisting largely of Protestant landowners and businessmen.
From 1969 to 1994, Belfast witnessed the worst of the Troubles, and by the time the IRA declared a ceasefire in 1994, much of the city resembled a battle site. Then the EU and Britain funded a revitalization program costing billions of pounds with shopping centers, hotels, bars, and restaurants springing up overnight. In the past decade, a new round of changes occurred as many derelict buildings were restored and new areas such as the Cathedral and Titanic quarters kept Belfast going forward.
City Centre
Donegall Square with its vast City Hall is the center of downtown. The River Lagan forms the eastern border with good development in Laganside and the Odyssey Complex across the river. Belfast’s traditional industries of rope-making, shipbuilding, weaving, and spinning are mostly defunct.
City Hall. This 1906 white stone hulking building with its copper dome has turrets, saucer domes, scrolls, and pinnacle pots, and a statue of Queen Victoria out front. Learning, linen, and liners are the alliterative bedrock of Belfast. Inside, the dome, palatial entrance hall, and oak-decorated council chamber are the highlights.
The Entries. NE are these narrow alleyways linking Ann Street and High Street with great old saloon bars.
Cathedral Quarter. North of Waring Street, this area has seen more than 2 decades of rejuvenation and is now a major restaurant, bar, and hotel area. On the edge of St Anne’s Square is the University of Ulster’s campus and the Metropolitan Arts Centre. The square hosts the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and the Open House Music Festival.
St Anne’s Cathedral. This Protestant neo-Romanesque basilica started in 1899 but wasn’t finished until 1981. The ceiling of the baptistery has a representation of Creation using 150,000 tiny pieces of glass. The only tomb, a simple slab on the floor is that of Lord Edward Carson (1854-1935): he opposed Home Rule and aligned himself with the Ulster Unionist resistance movement, believing that Northern Ireland couldn’t prosper without Britain; he abhorred religious intolerance. £5
Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum. This small museum commemorates WWII and especially the American involvement as all American convoys ended their trans-Atlantic trip at Belfast. An imposing bronze mural that crosses an entire wall celebrates that history and the Belfast industry’s role in the role.
Other notable sites are the Grand Opera House, Europa Hotel (Europe’s most bombed), Crown Liquor Saloon, the leaning Prince Albert Memorial Clock Tower, Customs House, the 60-foot high statue of a girl holding aloft a ring of thanksgiving (Nuala with a Hula) and the Waterfront Hall concert hall.
Titanic District. Across the river from the city center and connected by a lovely curving footbridge, this has the Queen’s Quay, a massive leisure complex called the Odyssey, and its figurehead, the Titanic Belfast. The Harland & Wolff Shipyards stands out with its two gigantic yellow cranes, Samson and Goliath. Past here in East Belfast, the birthplace of Van Morrison.
Titanic Belfast. This £77 million opened in April 2012, the anniversary of the world’s most famous shipwreck. The 38m-tall prow of the striking building is the same height as the ship’s hull and is covered in 3000 silver anodized aluminum shards. Inside the interactive museum details the Titanic’s conception and build in the nearby Harland & Wolff dry dock to its disastrous maiden voyage and the reasons why things went all wrong. Many individuals are chronicled.
Belfast’s astounding growth based on linen, rope, production of industrial machinery, and shipbuilding is well laid out. Harland & Wolff innovated by using iron rather than wood for decks and flatter hulls designed to maximize capacity. It built the Olympic, Britannic, and Titanic for White Star Lines in Belfast and fitted out in Southampton. The Titanic sank on April 14, four days after leaving Southampton for New York. More than 1500 of the 2200+ passengers and crew drowned. The Belfast attitude is “She was fine when she left here” and “Built by Irishmen, driven by an Englishman”. £15 concession
Nomadic Belfast. Included in the Titanic Belfast ticket price, the Southhampton-based tender for the Titanic sits in a dry dock next door. It is the only remnant of the White Star Lines. It was lovingly restored after several other lives. It had many famous passengers including Charlie Chaplain Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.
W5. In the Odyssey Complex, this scientific discovery center is aimed primarily at children. At the end of the day, I was allowed in for free and had a quick tour.
North Belfast
Belfast Castle. Not a castle, this is a large house with a six-story tower and turrets dating from 1870. Its construction bankrupted the Donegall family and it was finally gifted to the city in 1934. Now it t is primarily a venue for weddings and meetings and I was unable to access past the lobby. The main attraction may be the geometric gardens with its nine white cats. A 1.3km trail goes through the park and gardens. Free
Cave Hill. This 378m hill is one of a string of hills stretching for 11 miles. Composed of black basalt over white limestone, it has an imposing cliff face facing south with the remnants of 5 old iron mines, the source of the ‘caves’. McArt’s Fort, an early Christian ringfort sits on the edge of the cliff. Great views of Belfast extend as far as the Isle of Mann and the Scottish coast. The hill is the center of Cave Hill Park and extends north over meadows and down around the castle and Belfast Zoo. A challenging 7.2km trail goes past the caves and fort and crosses the meadow.
Belfast Zoo. A large recent investment has improved the layout. I didn’t go here on another rainy unpleasant day.
South Belfast.
This is the university quarter (Queen’s University) with the Botanic Gardens (1827, Palm House, Tropical Reserve, and the vast Ulster Museum. Walk the 8-mile Lagan Towpath that follows the river southwest to Lisburn. On the way, pass the Giant’s Ring, a colossal, 600-foot-wide Neolithic earthwork with its central dolman, thought to be a burial ground and used for horse races.
DOWN & ARMAGH
These are the southeastern corner of Northern Ireland between Belfast and the border. This is primarily a rural area with the coast as its main attraction.
ULSTER FOLK & TRANSPORT MUSEUM. Don’t miss this, easily one of the world’s best museums, seven miles east of Belfast. Conceived in the 1960s by a visionary man concerned that all the old buildings were being destroyed, he created an entire town and farming community by either dismantling entire buildings from all over Northern Ireland, taking them from their original site and rebuilding them here or finding classical and desirable buildings and completely constructing them from scratch.
Money seemed no object and he was a stickler for authenticity – the whole place looked like it was always here. The interiors are painstakingly recreated with all the props and furnishings. Many buildings are manned by a talented bunch of people, all skilled at conveying the essence of their building, Each site also has an information card indicating its origins and history.
Some of my favourites in the town were the Bank Manager’s House, the police barracks with a wonderful display of police history in N Ireland, the Parochial Hall, and the Church of Ireland. A highlight was the Basket Makers Workshop (it is manned by two professionals making baskets and animals from willow branches – the pig is incredible). Houses built with cruck framework were interesting – cruck were huge oak arches supporting the houses at both ends and the center. The weaver’s house has two original looms, one for producing jacquard patterns (Ireland is famed for its linen originally all produced on handlooms like these).
It is a big walk around the rural area, but don’t miss it for all its working farms and animals including sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, cows, and one horse. A highlight here was the spade mill – Ireland has 230 types of spades – where a fascinating film details how water wheel-driven hammers formed the spades (this mill still produces spades) and a demonstration of cutting peat (called turf in N Ireland, where ⅙ of the country is a bog. Also in the film were demonstrations of dancing and a ball game played on the streets to see how few throws were necessary to navigate the town and surroundings.
The town has 3 galleries, and 38 buildings, and the rural area has 15 farms, schools, and halls.
BANGOR. This small town was primarily a holiday resort for Belfast about 13 miles east of Belfast.
North Down Museum. Bangor’s period of historical significance was almost entirely associated with its abbey founded by St Comgall in 586. With 3000 monks, missionaries from here set forth to convert pagan Europe. Nothing of the abbey remains. Other displays trace the Ward family largely responsible for the town’s development. It is housed in the old stable of Bangor Castle.
From Bangor, I drove down the lovely east coast of the Ard Peninsula to Portaferry, at the mouth of Strangford Lough, a huge calm inlet with birds and yachting. Located at the entrance to the loch are three tidal, electricity-generating turbines (the largest in Britain and 3rd largest in the world) to capture the strong 8-knot tidal flow into and out of the loch
LECALE REGION. The Lecale Peninsula jutting into the south end of Strangford Lough is St Patrick country.
St Patrick. Ireland’s patron saint was a Roman Briton, first carried off as a youth from somewhere near Carlisle in northern England by Irish raiders. After 6 years of slavery in Ireland, he escaped home and at age 30, returned to Ireland as a bishop to spread Christianity (it had arrived earlier with traders and other slaves). Although St Patrick was not the first bishop of Ireland, he remains the most famous. He arrived in Ireland on the shores of the Lecale region and his first sermon was preached at Saul in 432.
Strangford. This tiny village has Castle Ward, an 18th-century schizophrenic residence thanks to the opposing tastes of its creators – Bernard Ward’s half is Classical Palladian and Anne Ward’s neo-Gothic (they later split up). There are pleasant gardens. £6 concession.
There are up to 4 km of walking trails extending from the ‘castle’ passing the farm (the location of Winterfell, HBO’s Game of Thrones), the lakeshore, Audley’s Castle, through forest and farmland back to the car parks.
Downpatrick (pop 10,000). 32 miles south of Belfast, it started as a Celtic fort, then was conquered by John de Courcy, a Norman knight. He imported the bodies of St Brigid and St Columba here to join St Patrick who is also allegedly buried here (no one knows where his bones are). The site of the three graves is in the Down Cathedral under a granite boulder put there in 1900 to cover a huge hole created by earlier pilgrims searching for the saint’s bones.
Saul Church. A couple of miles NE of Downpatrick off the Strangford road, St Patrick landed nearby, sailed up the tiny River Slaney, and first preached here immediately converting Dichu, the lord of the territory. Dichu gave him a barn as his first base and he returned here frequently to rest from his travels. Legend has it that he died here in 461. Today a small, stone memorial chapel with a high, round tower built in 1932 commemorated the 1500th anniversary of the saint’s arrival. A lovely stained glass window is in the nave. There is no trace of the 12th-century monastery built here by St Malachy. The church is open all the time. Free
ARMAGH. It was then an arduous 36-mile drive on narrow roads to Armagh. This city has been the site of the Catholic primacy of All Ireland since St Patrick established the church here, and has rather ambitiously adopted the title of the “Irish Rome” for itself. Paradoxically it is also the seat of the Protestant of Ireland’s Archbishop of Armagh.
The St Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the largest in Ireland. Known for its choral music, there is also the Charles Wood Festival of Music (mid-August), the William Kennedy Piping Festival (November), and the Bard of Armagh Festival (end of November).
St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. The foundation stone was laid in 1840, but completion was delayed by the Famine and subsequent lack of funding and was not consecrated until 1904. On the outside, it is plain Gothic-Revival but the large, airy interior is very impressive: every inch of wall and ceiling glistens with mosaics in marine, sky-blue, terracotta pink to orange colour, mostly geometrics but also depicting bible stories, all the Irish saints and several to St Brigid. The white granite tabernacle holder is impressive as are the stained glass, bas-relief Ways of the Cross, carved wood confessionals, brass screens, and intricate mosaic floor.
Museum of Orange Heritage. 10 miles north of Armagh in Portadown, this small museum gives a brief history of the Orange Order, Ireland’s oldest political group. It was founded in 1795 following the Battle of the Diamond between the Peep O’Day boys (Protestants) and The Defenders (Catholics), the culmination of a long-running dispute over control of the linen trade. The Defenders attacked an inn, unaware that inside were armed and waiting men, and a dozen Defenders were killed.
William of Orange is their icon after the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, celebrated by the Orange every year since 1796 (with a marching season lasting from March until July 12, the anniversary of the battle and followed by the August 12th Apprentice Boys March around Derry). The battle also enshrined Protestant supremacy with ⅔ of the Protestant male population belonging to the order.
Hillsborough Castle. Built in 1779 by the Hills family, at one time the biggest landowners in Ireland. From 1923, it was the residence of the governor of Northern Ireland and since 1973 direct rule from London, the home of the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed here in 1985 and negotiations for the Good Friday agreement were also held here. The house is only seen by a guided tour and the gardens are lovely in May and June. Monuments include the Quaker Burial Ground, Ice House, and Cromlyn Ruin.
The house has been under renovation since 2016 and is slated to open in July 2018. I only saw the outside but was kindly given all the brochures.
Irish Museum of Linen. In Lisburn, this is another good museum. The fashions displayed and the several working handlooms were fascinating. Free
By this point, I had come back full circle to return to the Belfast area (Lisburn is almost a suburb of Belfast). It was now time to see the north of Northern Ireland.