Northern Ireland

February/March 2025

Wednesday February 26

We had never flown from Cardiff before, and it made a real difference to have a much shorter journey than the usual one to Heathrow. Secondly, the Air Lingus flight time of midday was very civilised. We went through the airport checks in record time. The small plane, holding maybe 30 passengers had propellers. We arrived at George Best Belfast City Airport an hour later, 20 minutes ahead of flight time. Unlike Liverpool’s John Lennon airport which has a statue of John Lennon, there was no sign of George Best. Apparently, there used to be a picture, but his family asked it to be removed. The ‘George Best’ bit is quietly being dropped from Belfast City Airport. We were out of the airport in record time since we were the only plane arriving.

Picking up our Budget car rental, we headed east towards Bangor. The first thing we noticed was the number of speed cameras on the roads. They were everywhere and we hardly saw anyone speed in our time around Belfast. Our first stop was the Old Inn at Crawfordsburn, a short diversion west of Bangor. Belfast’s oldest hotel was established in 1614. Its original thatched cottage is flanked by 18th Century additions. Inside, a bar had snugs with rafters and deer heads overhead. I was a bit shocked to pay nearly £12 for a pint of Guiness and half a Coke, but I guess 4 star hotels can charge what they want. The fireplaces had roaring fires and the ambience mid afternoon was lovely. Belfast’s original ferry port was at Donaghadee and this inn was on the coach route in between. Consequently, it had seen it’s fair share of famous people including Peter the Great (Russian Czar), Dick Turpin, President George HW Bush, Swift, Tennyson and Dickens. A blue plaque outside stated that the writer C.S. Lewis spent his honeymoon here in 1959.

Once past Bangor, we did a circuit of the low lying Ards Peninsula. At Groomsport, we saw the Cockle Row cottages which were the original cottages at this port. At Donaghadee, I climbed the ‘Motte’ for a view of the lighthouse guarding the harbour which had a row of attractive houses overlooking it. We continued down to Cloughey before crossing over to Kircubbin and back up to Bangor where we checked into our Premier Inn for two nights. Ironically, I had squeezed in this trip because Premier Inn were doing a sale! On the stretch of shore known locally as the ‘Gold Coast’, Bangor was a Victorian seaside resort that first flourished when the Belfast-Bangor train line was built in the late 19th century. It was only 11 miles from Belfast centre.

We received a warm welcome everywhere we went and at the Bangor Premier Inn, the receptionist Geordie, gave us a box of Maltesers because it was our first visit to Northern Ireland. The friendliness of the people was so refreshing and would make our trip memorable because of it.

Thursday February 27

The Lonely Person’s Guide said that “Belfast is in so many ways a brand new city. Once shunned by travellers unnerved by tales of the Troubles and sectarian violence, in recent years, it has pulled off a remarkable transformation from bombs and bullets pariah to a hip hotels and hedonism party town.” We only wanted to see two things that would take the whole day.

On previous trips we had seen various Titanic artifacts or places – the museum in Liverpool, the old White Star offices in Queenstown near Cork, southern Island which was the last place the Titanic docked before heading off on its fateful voyage and we had even seen the graves of passengers at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The birthplace of the Titanic was the last place to see.

The museum building of ‘Titanic Belfast’ is a fabulously gleaming silver star shaped edifice and veers up like a spaceship. It was located at the tail (stern) end of the slipway where Titanic was originally built at the Haarland and Wollfe shipyards. I didn’t realize that they built two ocean liners side by side at the same time. The near identical ‘Olympic’ was completed nine months before the ‘Titanic’. They felt that there was a market in helping Irish immigrants cross over to the United States. Tourism by richer folks was an additional factor.

The Lonely Persons Guide described the Museum as “an unmissable multimedia extravaganza that charts the history of Belfast and the creation of the world’s most famous ocean liner.” On multi levels, it started with setting the context of Belfast and Ireland in the early Twentieth Century. Then it moved onto how the ship was designed. There were cleverly designed exhibits enlivened by historical images, animated projections and soundtracks. This was followed by a clever ‘fairground high tech ride’ through a noisy, smells and all recreation of the city’s shipyards. First, second and third class bedrooms had been recreated with stories of passengers and the dining areas. I didn’t realise that third class got sit down meals with a menu, napkins and service. I thought they all just slummed it beneath the water line. They had their own promenade as well, separate from the upper classes. Launch day arrived and this was captured with photos and movie footage. Then there were the stops of the maiden voyage to ‘shake down’ the ship – Southampton (where most of the crew boarded), Cherbourg, France and finally Queenstown in southern Ireland.

One of the issues was that the binoculars in the ‘Crows nest’ were locked away and the original crew member with the key had been swapped on one of the stops. So, when they were searching for icebergs that fateful night, they didn’t have access to the binoculars. The keys are in the museum since that crew member survived by missing the voyage.

There were then the accounts of the sinking by survivors interviewed later in their lives, artifacts (a violin, a deckchair etc) and listings of all the fatalities and survivors (including 3 of 12 dogs!) A large model of the Titanic spun slowly around with its lights gradually dimming. Beneath was footage of the real Titanic on the seabed. A section covered the shocking news circulated around the world. There are at least 74 Titanic ‘memorials’ around the world. Somewhere else was a section of the America who attempted to locate the Titanic for the first time and achieved it in 1981.

Nearly was the SS Nomadic which was built in Belfast in 1911 and is the last remaining vessel of the White Star Line. The little steamship ferried 1st and 2nd class passengers between Cherbourg Harbour and the ocean liners that were too big to dock at the French port. On 10 April 1912 it delivered 172 passengers to the ill-fated Titanic. Overall, the museum was really well done. It was one of the best I have ever visited. We spent over four hours there and only left because we had another tour booked in the afternoon. Very Recommended.

We moved onto the infamous Crumlin Road Gaol where a self-guided tour took us through a history of the gaol. Based on London’s Pentonville prison, it opened in 1846, and the gaol imprisoned a whole range of historic figures. We peered at the tunnel beneath Crumlin Road built in 1850 to convey prisoners from the courthouse across the street (and allegedly the origin of the judge’s phrase ‘take him down’). We then poked around the echoing halls and cramped cells of C-Wing done in in periods (1850-1973) to the execution chamber. The ‘Crum’ held 17 executions between 1854 and 1961. The last days of the doomed prisoner was dealt in detail until a bookcase slid open on the side of a large cell and a noose awaited next door. It closed as a working prison in 1996. Outside in the grounds were a British Army helicopter and vehicles from the ‘Troubles’. We had visited Dublin’s famous gaol, and this was equally as impressive. During our visit, Wendy left her mobile phone in the toilets, but it handed into reception. This was the first of three lucky escapes during our visit to Northern Ireland.

On our way out of the centre we drove down the unfamous Shanklin Road spotting various murals depicting the ‘Troubles. That night, we visited the ‘Jamaica Inn’ by the coast in Bangor. We had superb meals of scampi and a steak sandwich, both enormous, washed down by Guiness. It was a lovely ‘bohemian pub’ to have dinner.

Friday February 28

I had allowed us a couple of days to do the ‘Causeway Coastal Route’ along the northern coast of Ireland. The traffic was very heavy, and it took quite a while to get to Carrickfergus where it started. We would be staying here on our final night so didn’t stop. We would end up taking lots of detours off the Coastal Path which meant we didn’t seem to make much progress.

Immediately after Carrickfergus, we saw a sign for Glenoe where I knew there was a picturesque waterfall. Glenoe was a nice tiny hamlet but despite directions from a local man, we missed the turn off and did a few extra miles before doubling back and finding it, signed from this direction. It was a nice waterfall about 30ft tall with a good amount of water.

Back on the coast, we spotted Blackhead Lighthouse, built around 1902, The lighthouse, which lies along the north Antrim coastline, guards the mouth of Belfast Lough, where it spills out into the North Channel that divides Northern Ireland and Scotland. There was a lovely coastal walk, but we had time restraints. Around this point, I received a phone call from the Bangor Premier Inn. I had left my money belt in a bedside cabinet with our passports. Doh! I can’t ever remember leaving my passport anywhere before. I think we were so relaxed and didn’t need them that they were no longer a priority to check. I arranged to pick them up on Sunday night when we returned to Belfast. This was the second incident of leaving an essential thing.

Chaine Memorial Tower was a unique tower. James Chaine had been an influential man representing the area as an MP in the English Parliament in the 1870s. He promoted the development of a harbour to allow ferries to Scotland. Such was the fondness of the local people, that they had raised money to have this tower constructed in his memory.

We passed through Cushendun Beach which was a pretty seaside village and famous for its distinctive Cornish style cottages. These were built between 1912 and 1925. Another detour (‘The Torr’) took us on a minor narrow road which clung precariously to the steep slopes high above the sea. Since it was a clear day, we had superb views across the sea to Scotland which was only 12 miles away. The rocky headland of Torr Head was crowned with a 19th century coastguard station (abandoned in the 1920s). This is Ireland’s closest point to Scotland which is the Mull of Kintyre.

Somehow, at Ballycastle Beach, I forgot about the Marconi Memorial. In the harbour car park, a plaque commemorates the day in 1898 when Guglielmo Marconi’s assistants contacted Rathlin Island just offshore, by radio from Ballycastle to prove to Lloyds of London that wireless communication was a viable proposition.

On a limestone headland jutting out from the basalt cliffs with stupendous views of Rathlin Island and Scotland, the ruined castle of Kinbane was built in 1547 and then rebuilt in 1555 following an English siege. It was abandoned in the 17th century.

The pretty village of Ballintoy Harbour tumbled down the hillside to a picture postcard harbour. The restored lime kiln on the quayside once made quicklime. The nearby sea cliffs had contrasting black basalt and white chalk with broad sweeps of sandy beach. Offshore were small rocky islands.

Dunseverick Castle was a promontory fort and an ancient royal site. It was attacked by the Vikings around 871 and 924 AD as well as destroyed by a Scottish army under the command of General Robert Munro in 1642. In the 1650s, Cromwell’s troops captured and destroyed it. It was never refortified or reoccupied again.

We had run out of time and made a run for Londonderry via Coleraine. We were booked into two nights at the Premier Inn on the outskirts. (London) Derry, the second largest city in Northern Ireland is known as the ‘The Maiden City’ because it was never breached by an invader. It is famous for the Siege of Derry (1688-89), and the Battle of the Bogside and Bloody Sunday during the ‘Troubles’. It was Ireland’s earliest example of town planning based on a grid plan with four city gates. Nationalists call it Derry. Unionists call it by its original name, Londonderry. With a fabulous sunset on the horizon, we toured the intact 17th Century city walls. Completed in 1619, the walls are 8m high and 9m thick and gave us marvellous views over the city. They surrounded what seemed was originally a very small town.

Saturday March 1

We rejoined the Causeway Coastal Route from the Derry end. The first thing we visited was Mussenden Temple which was a small circular building located on cliffs near Castlerock , high above the Atlantic Ocean. Perched on the cliffs overlooking Downhill Strand, it was once possible, before coastal erosion, to drive a carriage around the temple. Built in 1785, it was constructed as a library and modelled from the Temple of Vesta in the Forum Romanum in Rome. The books and bookcases were kept dry by a fire burning constantly in the basement. The ‘Temple’ was isolated from the remaining walls of an old manor which had a huge stone dovecote that housed over 150 pairs of birds kept for their feathers.

Further on, Portstewart Strand was a two-mile stretch of golden sand and renowned as one of Northern Ireland's finest beaches. At Portrush, we watched the Atlantic waves crash onto the rocky coastline. Portrush also had three beautiful beaches bordering the Ramore Head peninsula. The most famous was Whiterocks Beach with its limestone cliffs and sea caves. West Strand Beach ran from the south side of the harbour towards Portstewart while East Strand Beach was on the east side of the peninsula. It looked like a lovely place to stay in the summer.

Dunluce Castle’s ruins perched atop a dramatic basalt crag just west of Giant’s Causeway. A narrow bridge led from the mainland courtyard across a dizzying gap to the main part of the fortress. In the 16/17th centuries, the castle was the seat of the MacDonnell family who built a Renaissance style manor house within the walls.

We passed, but did not stop at the Old Bushmill’s Distillery, which apparently is the world’s oldest legal distillery, having been granted a licence by King James 1 in 1608. “The whiskey is made with Irish barley and water from St Columb’s Rill, a tributary of the river Bush and matured in oak barrels. During aging, the alcohol content drops from around 60% to 40%, the spirit lost through evaporation is known as ‘the angels’ share’.” (Lonely Person’s Guide).

Every school kid in the 1970s was told about Giants Causeway and since then, the spectacular rock formation became Northern Ireland’s only UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986. Consequently, they charge a hefty price to park and visit the Visitor Centre, even though the site itself is free to visit. We discovered that you could park at the hotel next door for £10 and if you went in for a drink, the £10 went towards your bill.

It was quite a long walk down a slope before you reached one of Ireland’s most impressive and atmospheric landscape features. Giants Causeway is a vast expanse of around 40,000 regular, closely packed, interlocking hexagonal stone columns which was the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. The tops of the columns formed stepping stones that led from the foot of the cliff to eventually disappear under the sea. While most of the columns were hexagonal, some had four, five, seven, or eight sides. The tallest were approximately 12 metres (39 ft) high.

The Saturday afternoon with decent weather had facilitated a good crowd of tourists who clambered around the stone columns, taking selfies, but it was possible to have parts of it to yourself. As you walked towards the sea, the columns turned darker in colour and looked dramatic with crashing waves behind them. I am pleased to say that Giants Causeway did not disappoint, and everyone should attempt to visit it. It felt like a unique geological phenomenon. After our visit, a pint of cold Guiness at the hotel rounded off the visit. We had spent a couple of hours taking it all in.

We headed inland to eventually find the ‘Dark Hedges’. This beautiful avenue of beech trees was planted by the Stuart family in the eighteenth century. It was intended as a compelling landscape feature to impress visitors as they approached the entrance to their Georgian mansion, Gracehill House. Two centuries later, the two lines of trees remain a magnificent sight and have become one of the most photographed natural phenomena in Northern Ireland, more so since they featured in the ‘Game of Thrones’ series which we had never seen. We were surprised to find about fifty other tourists walking up the lane taking photos. Since spring had yet to start, the spooky looking trees were leafless but just as impressive.

Sunday March 2

In Cardiff, Wales, we have St Fagan’s Museum, where they have brought a collection of traditional Welsh houses within a park to represent Welsh history. In Northern Ireland, they have the excellent Ulster American Folk Park which tells the story of how during the 18th and 19th centuries more than two million Ulster people left their homes to forge a new life across the Atlantic.

“The museum features a sprawling outdoor history park with Old world cottages and New world log cabins with actors in period costume to bring the stories to life. Original buildings brought here include: a blacksmith’s forge, a weaver’s thatch cottage, a Presbyterian meeting house and a schoolhouse. In the American section there is a 18th century settler’s stone cottage, a log house and Tennessee plantation house. The two parts of the park are cleverly linked up by passing through a mock up of an emigrant ship.” (Lonely Persons Guide).

We spent an enjoyable five hours here, talking to the costumed ‘actors’ learning about how people lived in the past, how things were made and general chitchat. For a Sunday, it didn’t seem very crowded so we could take our time and savour each building (about 40 of them). It was a lot better than I expected and is recommended.

When we had arrived there, we realised that we had left Wendy’s overcoat at the Derry Premier Inn (the third of a trio of errors) so we had to abandon our plan to visit the attractive little cathedral city of Armagh which has been an important religious centre since the fifth century and remains the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, the seat of both the Anglican and Roman archbishops of Armagh. Their two cathedrals both named for St Patrick look across at each other from their respective hilltops.

Instead, we drove back to Derry. picked up the coat and headed directly to Belfast to pick up the passports from the Bangor Premier Inn. We did attempt to take a photo of ‘Stormont’ the Northern Ireland Government Building at dusk but the gates were locked. Picking up our passports, we headed north back to Carrickfergus for our final night.

Monday March 3

We awoke to find ourselves with a view of the impressive Carrickfergus Castle. The central keep of Ireland’s first and finest Norman fortress was built in 1177. The massive walls of the outer ward were completed in 1242 while the red-brick gun ports were added in the 16th century. The castle overlooks the harbour where William of Orange landed on 14 June 1690 on his way to the Battle of the Boyne. A blue plaque marks the spot where he stepped ashore.

As we enjoyed our only Premier Inn all-you-can-eat breakfast, we reflected on how enjoyable our trip had been, despite the episodes of Alzheimer’s. It wasn’t just the feeling of familiarity (sometimes we felt scenically, that we were in Wales), it was the friendliness and reception of the people that made the trip. They were optimistic about the future and just getting on with it. We lost count of the people who would say ‘welcome’ when we said it was our first visit to Northern Ireland. Reluctantly, we drove back to George Best Belfast City Airport, dropped the car off and caught the midday flight back to Cardiff. It had been a really enjoyable experience, beyond our expectations. Recommended.