Visiting the Irish

This Christmas, as gezellig as it is, we did not stay in The Hague. We left the continent, traveling to Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland and part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but NOT, as Young Francis pointed out, the country where the northern most part of the island of Ireland is located. This geographical extreme goes to the Republic of Ireland.

More specifically we stayed in the town of Antrim in hilly County Antrim in the Irish Ulster province. Antrim is nearby the biggest lake in Ireland (the island) called Lough Neagh and pronounced Loch as in Loch Ness (not Loff) and Neigh as in the horse’s whinny. Antrim is also just 35 km from Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. And Antrim is where Sean’s aunts live with their families.

Our arrival in Antrim was a shady clandestine operation with subterfuge and stealth planned by Old (uncle) Francis.  Nancy was not to know we were coming, it would be a lovely surprise. Sean hoped his aunty would remember who he was - it had been eleven or so years since they visited Sean’s family in Australia - and here we were turning up at Christmas. With the mission objective to pick us up from the secondary Belfast airport, George Best airport, Old Francis and Young (cousin) Francis fabricated an untruth that they were going out shopping for a fifty-inch television. Cousins Angela and Maria were sworn to secrecy and were not allowed to mention Sean’s name during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Colin, the butcher had a classified meat and poultry order so that we would be fed on Christmas Day. Cousin Michael had to stall Nancy entering the front room until our arrival. 

Nancy was surprised but of course she immediately recognised Sean, her favourite nephew. And we were warmly welcomed by the whole family and waited on hand and foot.

Young Francis took us on a great drive on Christmas Eve, along part of the wild and windy Causeway Coastal Route, a road journey around the coast of Northern Ireland between the cities of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry. We stopped off first at the twelfth century Carrickfergus castle in the town of Carrick Fergus, right on the coast. 

There is a small but apparently true to life size statue of William III of Orange nearby, since Carrickfergus marks the spot where King William III landed in Ireland on 14 June 1690. The Protestant William of Orange then went onto defeat the army of the Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne, a symbolically important battle commemorated by the Protestant Orange Order.

Carrickfergus Castle

We continued the drive through various places that started with the prefix Bally or Glen until we arrived at the car park entrance to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, a twenty metre suspension bridge fashioned together from a few planks of wood and some rope. The ‘wee’ bridge is thirty metres above some sharp rocks sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean and links the mainland to a wee island, Carrick Island. Apparently the bridge has been used by salmon fishermen for a few hundred years and the National Trust guides were happy to let us totter across the bridge despite the gale force winds and driving rain. In the end, the walk across the bridge was only mildly scary and the views ruggedly beautiful.

Carrick-a-rede bridge

Next we drove onto Bushmills, home of the Ireland’s oldest working whiskey distillery, also called Bushmills. The original license to distill whiskey was granted to Bushmills in 1608, but on Christmas Eve the distillery workers were having the day off, so no whiskey tastings for us. Nevermind we had a top lunch at the Bushmills Inn and got to sample some quite yummy ‘champ’ (mashed potatoes and ‘scallions’).

Our next stop was the pièce de résistance of the coastal drive. The basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some say the amazing rock formations were caused by a volcano, but the Irish explanation concerns a medium sized giant named Finn McCool. Finn began to build a walk way across the sea to fight the larger sized Scottish giant Benandonner. But it was tough work and worn out, Finn fell asleep. When he woke up the Scottish heavyweight was on his way. Finn’s clever wife Oonagh saved the day, disguising Finn as a baby and making him snuggle up in a big cradle. Benandonner, having seen the massive ‘baby’ in the cradle, began to wonder what size the Dad (Finn) would be. Benandonner fled to Scotland and destroyed the Causeway as he left.

Hexagonal Columns of the Giant's Causeway

Before we headed home we stopped at another medieval castle, Dunlace castle perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. At one point in it’s history, part of the kitchen next to the cliff edge collapsed into the sea and of the staff only a kitchen boy sitting in the corner survived.

Dunlace Castle minus the kitchen

Antrim Round Tower

On Christmas Day we seen all the family but first Young Francis takes us to a local site, the Antrim Round Tower, a tall skinny tower with few windows, dating from the tenth century. It was probably used by monks to protect them from Vikings. Francis explained another Irish folktale related to the tower. Next to the tower is a big natural rock with two indents. A witch named Ann Trim, who had jumped from the top of the Round Tower and landed on the rock created those dents, and Antrim is named after that witch (apparently).

The folktales continued after Christmas lunch with Sean and his cousins telling 6-year-old Elly, Angela’s daughter, that Sean owns a kangaroo called ‘Bouncy.’ I don’t think she believed him, too smart for Sean. Elly has been given a sword and a claw hand for Christmas - he shouldn’t mess with her.

The family also talked about what it has been like living in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Although the situation has improved since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, we notice the police stations are still heavily fortified with razor wire.

Arthur's old street

We spent a day in Belfast with Young Francis and Michael. On the drive in we stopped in Jamaica Street, where the childhood home of Sean’s Dad once stood but today the homes have been rebuilt as modern dwellings. We passed through the Ardoyne and Crumlin Roads, Catholic districts of Belfast notorious for violent incidents during the Orange Order’s marching seasons. The houses are small and close together.

We see murals painted on the sides of houses. In Belfast, both sides, the Nationalist Catholics and Unionist Protestants, painted murals depicting their view of history and political allegiances, some glorifying paramilitary groups. 

We see more murals on the bus tour of Belfast that takes us along the so-called peace lines, high walls that separate the interface areas between the loyalist Shankill and the republican Falls Roads. The peace walls were designed to minimise violence between the two opposing communities. Imagine having a high wall built between you and your neighbour for fear of violence.

Our tour bus also drove by the Harland & Wolff shipyard, famous for building that unlucky big boat, the RMS Titanic. April 2012 will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of Titanic’s maiden voyage (2 April) when the largest passenger steamship in the world at the time, departed Belfast to collect passengers from ports in England, France then Ireland, before setting sail across the Atlantic to New York City. And then on 15 April 2012, it will be one hundred years since the doomed ship sunk after hitting an iceberg. The disaster is still one of the deadliest peacetime maritime catastrophes in history, with over 1500 people killed. Next year in Belfast there will be a new exhibition centre opening called Titanic Belfast which will, obviously, tell the story of Titanic. Meanwhile the SS Nomadic, built as a tender to ferry passengers from the dock to the Titanic, is still ‘alive’ and is undergoing restoration in Belfast’s Titanic quarter. But the main standout features of the area now are two one-hundred metre high yellow Harland & Wolff cranes nicknamed Samson and Goliath, they are visible miles away.

Belfast City Hall

Belfast has some beautiful buildings too. The city hall is a Nineteenth century neo-baroque building with a green tinged copper dome roof and numerous statues in it’s grounds including one of Queen Victoria - she granted Belfast city status in 1888. She also opened Belfast’s Queens University in 1849, a red brick neo-gothic style building.

Queen's University

The Crown Bar

Another elaborate building in Belfast from the Victorian era, is The Crown Bar said to be finest Victorian Gin Palaces of its time, today owned by the National Trust. There are coloured tiles on the outside, a mosaic of a crown at the front entrance and the ceiling is carved. 


We have Guinness at the bar while we wait for a table. Sean has a pint and I have a half pint of the black stuff. Not bad. 

Outside The Crown Bar

The Crown Bar entrance

The tables at the Crown are inside ‘snugs’, cosy and quaint wooden carved booths with a bell to press for service and metal plates to strike to light matches. Michael and I have Irish stew. Sean and Young Francis take the beef and Guinness pie. We then stock up on souvenirs, Sean has Bushmills and Guinness memorabilia bought for him and I buy an assortment of tea towels for the tea towel collectors in my family.

In the snug

When we arrive back at the Nancy and Old Francis household, we greet Marie, Sean’s cousin once removed and she is just and kind and warm as Nancy. The evening previous we visit Sean’s aunt Lucy, also happy to see us and cousins Bernadette and Jim. Later we stop into a pub to enjoy the craic with Young Francis, Maria and Bernadette and their respective beau’s. Sean finally samples the Bushmill’s whiskey and reminisces with Young Francis and Maria about their trip to Australia over a decade ago.

We have had such a wonderful time with the Irish and we will soon plan another trip back to Antrim, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom and all that.