Land of hospitality
Dunedin writer and traveller Neville Peat gets his first taste of Ireland and its idiosyncrasies through a circuit of both Northern Ireland (UK) and the Republic of Ireland.
IN Ireland, when does a road that appears to be for oneway traffic become a twolaner? Answer, when someone optimistically paints a white dotted line down the middle. Were we living some kind of Irish joke?
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. All journeys have to begin somewhere and our 10day Irish escapade began in southwest Scotland at the newish Cairnryan ferry terminal, strategically located where the Irish Sea narrows to just over 30km.
Day 1 (August 19): Boat
Took a rental car into the belly of the promisingly named P&O ferry Europe Causeway, a decent size with amenities galore, including a lounge for posh passengers and a digital games room. Sea smooth, lit with murky sunshine. As we approach the Northern Ireland port of Larne, sea and sky become dull grey — mirroring the stone facades of Larne itself. Welcome to the Emerald Isle. First town we stop at is Carrickfergus, where we book into bedandbreakfast accommodation for two nights then dine at an ancient hotel with low door frames where my fish meal arrives groaning with potatoes, eight of them. Potato blight not a bother this year.
Day 2: Bullets
Down the road in Belfast, the oncetroubled capital of Northern Ireland, we take a recommended Black Taxi Tour. Our Carrickfergus hosts said it would enlighten us about the ugly period of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholic republican activists and Protestant UK loyalists that erupted in the late 1960s and 1970s. Our Black Taxi driver, Jim O’Neill, while keeping his sectarian powder dry so to speak, makes straight for a Falls Rd area to show us a high steel fence separating Catholic and Protestant precincts. It’s shocking to realise such a grim metal barrier still exists, fitted with steel gates that slide shut overnight. Half a century on from the start of The Troubles, Belfast still has a steel barrier through the middle of its suburban sprawl. Near this first stop, the O’Neill family of nine children lived. It was a struggle to make ends meet. A short walk away was a flour mill owned by UK interests but their father, like most Catholics, had no show of getting a job.
One day Jim, aged 13, was crossing the road near his home, when suddenly he was lifted off his feet. For no apparent reason, he was shot in the arm and back by a British soldier manning a roadblock a couple of hundred metres away. Jim rolls up his shirt sleeve now to reveal the scar. The Troubles involved violent rioting, over 3000 deaths from gunfire and bombs and the imprisonment of IRA activists and sympathisers by the thousand. Around Catholic precincts the Union Jack was called the ‘‘Butcher’s Apron’’.
Clearly feelings still run deep, if less violently. Jim, in his 50s now, says his children show little interest in The Troubles; they just want to get on with their lives. That evening we eat fish ’n’ chips and seafood chowder in the stylish old Europa Hotel in the centre of Belfast. Known as Europe’s most bombed hotel in the 1970s as a result of IRA attacks, the Europa is model of dignified dining for our visit.
Day 3: Basalt
Heading north through County Antrim by way of the coast road, we have a geological landmark as a destination — the Giant’s Causeway. As Ireland’s only Unesco World Natural Heritage Area, it naturally gets a lot of tourism attention but I am surprised by both the scale of this volcanic formation and its pulling power. In midsummer the place is teeming with visitors (5000 a day is not uncommon).
After passing picturesque coastal villages bedecked in Union Jack flags we detour on to a signposted ‘‘coastal scenic drive’’ called Torr Head, featuring cliffs and hilly farmland, emerald green to be sure. The asphalt road becomes narrow, often trenched between drystone walls and banks of pretty fuchsia bushes that allow no room to dodge oncoming traffic. An SUV approaches rather fast, suggesting local knowledge, the driver grimfaced. We pass, at low speed now, with millimetres to spare between our side mirrors. Scenery yes, but no chance to enjoy it, and white centre lines that are having you on.
The Giant’s Causeway’s columnar basalt dwarfs Dunedin’s Organ Pipes formation. There are said to be 40,000 individual columns here, and they range from stepped stonework at the shoreline that Inca stonemasons would be proud of, to overhanging crags on the cliffs. Even crawling with visitors, this landscape is a stunner, a product of lava cooling at just the right rate to create tightfitting joints.
To the west is the republic and the county of Donegal. More or less marking the border is the city of Londonderry. Union Jacks disappear here and you’re encouraged to drop the ‘‘London’’ reference. Derry will do. Gaelic place names are suddenly more prominent. For example, An Carraigh is the name of the small town of Carrick, where a pub band plays Whiskey in the Jar and other toetappers. Near here we find a bedandbreakfast lodge owned by a retired deepsea fisherman, a hard case who produces a hearty Irish cooked breakfast next morning.
Day 4: Galway
A short drive from the lodge takes us to another natural coastal landmark, the seriously high cliffs of Slieve League. Rising 600m above the North Atlantic Ocean, these are said to be the highest sea cliffs in Europe. Not that the agile and remarkably tame blackfaced sheep, grazing on knobbly, treeless grasslands, would give a toss about such a record.