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| Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland |
Cara Robison, a great friend from optometry school, and her
husband Brian flew across the pond for a couple weeks of vacation. They spent the first few days with one of
Cara’s cousins (she has about a thousand of them!) who lives in London, went to
Liverpool for a couple days for their fill of Beatles history, and then came
down to our house for a day. The four of us then headed to Northern Ireland and Ireland for five days. The weather
here has been really, really rubbish (as they say) for the past month - we’re well below average temperatures for
this time of year and had the wettest April on record despite the fact we’re
still in a drought. The Robisons got a
little taste of the cold and damp weather but were great travelers: they donned
coats and continued on with as smile!
The next day we drove a half hour to the town of Ely and its
impressive cathedral. It was somehow
colder IN the cathedral than it was outside, and our butts were freezing as our
tour guide had us sit in various places so he could point out bits of architecture
or let us in on the ‘highlights’ of the history of the place. Our guide was the most proper, smartly
dressed, and verbose 80-year old I’ve ever met.
At the end of the tour, we wandered around a small stained glass museum
and Cara and I each did a brass rubbing to take home as a souvenir.
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| Ha! Cara and Brian in the rapeseed field by our house. |
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| Inside Ely Cathedral. |
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| Me and Cara in Ely Cathedral. |
The next morning was an early one, as our flight to Belfast,
Northern Ireland from London Stansted airport left at 7:55 in the morning. So much for getting to sleep in on
vacation! Everything about the journey
worked out incredibly smoothly, even walking up to the gate as the attendant
made the first boarding announcement, chancing us at the very beginning of the
line. The flight was only an hour long,
and within thirty minutes of landing we had retrieved luggage, rented a car,
and started our drive up the Causeway Coastal Route.
Quick orientation:
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, which is roughly the
northern quarter of the island west of Great Britain. (The Republic of Ireland makes up the
southern 3/4ths of the island.) Our plan
for the day was to drive from Belfast along the incredibly scenic coast to the
Giant’s Causeway, stopping at various towns and castles along the way. The first stop was Carrickfergus castle, just
north of the city. We arrived as it
opened, paid our £5 each (plus £2 for the plastic sword and axe we needed), and spent about half an hour
roaming around. The castle was built in
1177 and is still well preserved.
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| Man your cannon! |
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| Our men storming the castle. |
From there we drove an hour along some quite foggy coastline
to a tiny town called Cushendun to eat at a small hotel restaurant that was
recommended in Cara’s guidebook. What a
great little place! The clouds lifted at
this point and we were met with some gorgeous views of the farm land, the
hills, and the sea. The views got even
better as we started through the Nine Glens of Antrim, dramatic glacier carved
hills that dive right into the sea.
There were very few cars on the road so we were able to stop at whim to
take photos or be entertained watching the (really loud!) baby sheep running
around the fields.
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| Chris driving us along the Causeway Coast in Northern Ireland. |
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| Brian by the sea. |
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| Northern Ireland landscape. |
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| Northern Ireland landscape. |
The next destination was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge,
which stretches across a 75 foot deep chasm to connect the mainland to a little
fishing island. From the cliffs of the
island you could see thousands of sea birds flying below and the gorgeous views
(I know I’m sounding like a broken record) stretched for miles.
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| Me on the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. |
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| The bridge. |
From
the adrenaline pumping rope bridge we went to the totally lame Dunlace castle. Cara pointed out that we are a wee bit jaded
when it comes to castles and churches but agreed this one truly was overrated. The video at the tiny welcome center was the
one interesting part because it summed up in eight minutes the history of the
area from the 1100’s.
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| Cara and Brian at Dunlace Castle. |
Anyway, after about fifteen minutes walking around the
castle we hopped back in the car and from there Chris drove us to the highlight
of the trip – the Giant’s Causeway. In
the books it is described as an area of about 40,000 basalt columns formed by
the extremely slow cooling of an ancient volcano eruption. To me and Chris it was one of the most unique
and interesting places we’ve visited! I
guess I am jaded on castles and
churches because no matter how unique they are, they’re still man-made and basically
similar. The Giant’s Causeway was
something completely matchless. There
are other places in the world that have basalt columns in similar geometric
patterns but probably none on the same scale as this site. It was a little hike to get to the main area
of columns but once there you can just walk all over and explore the 60-million
year old formations. As a direct drive
this is only an hour from Belfast (it took us about four since we drove along
the coast and stopped in various spots along the way.) It’s Northern Ireland’s most popular tourist
destination, which was hard to believe as there were maybe ten other people
there. We had to get the rental car
back and so couldn’t stay for sunset (at almost 9:00 PM) but did get some of the
long late-afternoon rays that highlighted all the amazing geometric angles of
the rocks.
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| Cara and Brian on the Giant's Causeway. |
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| Climbing the 'Organ'. Don't worry Grandma, we're only about a foot off the ground. |
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| Chris at the Giant's Casueway. |
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| Me at the Giant's Causeway. |
After dropping the rental car back at the airport, we caught
a cab to our hotel. The cabbie was
amazingly helpful, kind, and genuine. We
found the same hospitality and friendliness throughout our time in Northern
Ireland and Ireland! He did make it
known there was zero love lost between the folks of Belfast and Dublin, and
seemed disappointed we were to spend more time in Dublin than Belfast but that
didn’t stop him from being super friendly.
He explained the rules and scoring of Gaelic football (82,000 people fit
into Belfast’s downtown stadium!), so the four of us can now tell you who won a
game in which the final score was 4:4 to 3:6.
By the time we dumped our stuff in the rooms it was 10:00 at night. Cara and I went for food and the guys went on
a wild goose chase for beer that led them so far astray they had to get a cab
back to the hotel.
We spent the whole next day exploring and learning about
Belfast. Most will remember the Troubles
of Northern Ireland, especially from 1969 through the 1980’s. A ceasefire around 1997 saw an end to the
vast majority of violence between the Catholic Nationalists and the Protestant
Unionists. The tension between the Nationalists and Unionists started well
before the 1969… all the way back to the 1600’s when England sent English and
Scottish “Planters” to settle on the island due to fears that if Ireland gained
strength it would attack England, or the Spanish would colonize Ireland and use
it as a base to attack England. The “Planters” were Protestant, but the rest of
Ireland was, and continues to be, Catholic.
Fast forward to 1918, when there was a vote in which an overwhelming
majority of what we know now as the Republic of Ireland voted for independence
from England. The area that is now
Northern Ireland, also known as The Six Counties or Ulster, voted to stay under
British rule. Fast-forward again to 1968
when a huge civil rights protest broke out in Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Britain
responded with a heavy hand, which led to an uprising by the Irish Republican
Army (IRA). The two sides struggled
until on Bloody Sunday British paratroopers killed 13 Catholics at a peaceful
protest and guerrilla conflict ensued. Obviously
this is NOT the complete history, but it gives a general understanding of why
there is still a euphemistically named ‘peace wall ‘ standing in the city
separating Catholics and Protestants, why political murals are painted all over
the city, and why to this day housing is segregated into distinct Catholic and Protestant areas. In 2010 the British government formally apologized
for Bloody Sunday which, at least according to the people we talked to, seems
like another step towards peace in the area.
With peace comes tourists, and with tourists comes an influx of money
into the area. People seem to understand
this link and are very welcoming! The
people we talked to seemed genuinely proud of the peace, though they admit
there is a long way to go. A 60-something
year old lady we met at the bus stop smilingly said “It’s not a bad year for
us, you know. We opened the Titanic museum,
the Olympics are coming, and we’re getting more tourists than ever. “
This is a big change from Northern Ireland twenty years
ago. During our tours, we saw many
bullet holes from during The Troubles and ate lunch across the street from the
Europa hotel, the most bombed hotel in the world according to some (36
times!). One really shocking remnant of
the clashes between the Nationalist and the Unionists are the euphemistically
named Peace Walls that separate Catholic from Protestant neighborhoods. To this day the gates in the walls are open
during the day but are still shut at night.
There are long-term plans that outline the structured dismantling of the
walls but the topic is still hotly contested as many people feel the barriers
are still vital to the peace of the area.
The other very prominent symbols of ‘The Troubles’ are the murals that
adorn hundreds of walls throughout the country, especially in Belfast. Some of the murals promote political beliefs,
others commemorate victims to certain bombings or shootings, depict historical
events, and are propaganda for paramilitary groups.
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| One of the Peace Walls in Belfast. |
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| Beacon of Hope sculpture in Belfast. |
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| One of the Murals in Belfast. |
We were caught up in the sightseeing and barely made it to
our 6:00 PM train to Dublin. And I mean,
barely. The countdown was at 0:59 when
Brian tossed the final suitcase and himself on board!
