Our first entrance into Northern Ireland was to visit the Belleek Pottery factory. It was founded in the early 1800s as a maker of Parian Porcelain, which is a white porcelain that is supposed to resemble marble. They also own Aynsley China, which has been in existence since the 1700s. A maternal great, great grandfather of mine once owned a pottery works, so I found it fascinating to see how a pottery factory operated and created its wares.
Belleek was barely across the border into Northern Ireland and our next destination was Derry (still legally named Londonderry). The route took us back out of Northern Ireland into Ireland for much of the trip and then back into Northern Ireland to reach Derry. Fortunately things were quiet in Northern Ireland so we could go back and forth across the border without much effort or worry.
Our local guide in Derry had grown up in Galway with a Chinese mother and an Irish father. He had moved to Derry to attend the university and stayed. In addition to conducting walking tours of the city, he also taught mathematics and history. He was fun to listen too as he had a very good sense of humor in addition to a great deal of knowledge.
I came close to getting into trouble immediately after arriving in Derry when I snapped a photo of one of the guard towers on the still very much intact city walls. Our guide told us that we weren’t allowed to take photos of the guard towers and that we could lose our cameras as a consequence as well as be detained. He said this after I had taken my picture. Fortunately nobody (including him, anybody in the tower, or even my mom) noticed me taking the photo. Whew! You can see it attached to this blog.
We took a walk along the walls (which were closed during The Troubles). There were still some heavily secured areas where we could not go. Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited locations in Ireland, having been founded in the 6th century by the same St Columba who was running around in Scotland a little later. There had been people living in the vicinity for thousands of years before that.
We had a tour of the city guildhall before heading for a drive along the Antrim Coast. The Scots, after whom Scotland was named, originated from the Antrim Coast of Ireland. Dunluce Castle, a ruined 13th century castle, has been used in recent years as a location for “Game of Thrones”. Part of the castle has fallen into the sea.
The Giant’s Causeway looks like stacks of coins. It was formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. The legend is that it was built by a pair of giants, one from Ireland and the other from Scotland and once spanned the ocean between the two countries. Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa in Scotland has the same basalt formations. We had to be driven down to the columns on a small bus. But once there, we were able to climb all over the place which, since I had very good rubber soles on my shoes (the stones were wet and quite slippery in spots), I did. The Giant’s Causeway is so unique and magical that it is one of my favorite places in the world.
My paternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather was born in Belfast in roughly 1834. Somewhere along the way, he ended up as a butler at a home in Kensington in London (according to the 1871 census). I love seeing historic and scenic places and especially love to see places where I have a family connection. I try to picture the place as it might have been when they were alive.
One of the first places we were shown was where the Titanic was built. The Harland and Wolfe Company, which built the ship, was still building ships in the same waterfront location in 2005 when we were there. A photo of one of their cranes accompanies this blog. There is now a Titanic Museum in Belfast. In 2005, just the Harland and Wolfe cranes and a memorial existed. Our city tour also included the Parliament, the University, several wall murals and City Hall.
The next day, we took a ferry direct from Belfast to Stanraer, Scotland driving up the coast back to Glasgow. On the way, we passed by Culzean Castle. Someday I’d like to visit that castle too.
