ISLE of MAN and the TT
About halfway between Belfast on the east coast of Northern Ireland and Liverpool on the west coast of England, in the Irish Sea, sits the Isle of Man.
A short 3 hour ferry ride brings us to Douglas, the islands capital.
Although the island is quite picturesque, the main reason we are here is for Brian to get to see the TT motorcycle course, something he has wanted to see for more than 30 years. This particular race has been running here for more than 100 years, and is the world’s last motor sport event to be run on a long circuit of public roads.
It’s 37.75 mile mountain circuit is regarded as the ultimate test of rider skill and machine durability.
We have come to see it for ourselves, and we’re not disappointed. It is a truly beautiful and spectacular ride around the circuit. Ranging from suburban streets, to winding country lanes between hedgerows and trees. Over stone bridges, down stone wall lined roads, past country pubs and farmland. To high speed hillclimbs and no speed limit sections across the heather covered hills. We take Josephine around this course in more than a 1 hour, it takes the racers on average 18 minutes. We averaged 30 mph, they average 130 mph. Up the mountain across the top and then down past the famous Greg Na Baa Hotel. The best view of the circuit from the balcony at the front. Just feet away from the speeding bikes. With the ghosts of the famous riders like Hailwood and Dunlop for company.
You climb 1400 ft above sea level, and the two days we cruised the circuit, the mountain top was shrouded in cloud. There are more than 220 corners, a couple of serious hairpins, a level railway crossing or two, and through villages with their white washed houses only feet from the passing traffic. A truly memorable experience.
They run this annual race in June, and with any luck in 2009 Brian and I will be standing on the side of the road watching the best or craziest riders in the world pit their skills against this demanding circuit.
Leaving Ireland for the Isle of Man
After our month in Ireland, both the Republic and Northern Ireland we book our tickets on the ferry for the Isle of Man.
Brian has wanted to see this small island for the past 30 odd years, so now his dream will become reality.
Say tuned for the next step in "Our Big Adventure"
The TT course on The Isle of Man
SHANKILL ROAD
Once in the area it’s easy to determine which area you’re in.
Union Jacks, red, white and blue painted kerbs, Unionist murals, you’re in the Shankill. Irish flags, green, gold and white kerbs and Nationalist murals, you’re in the Falls.
We walked the Shankill Road area today, stopping to take photos of the murals, some now having a historical and cultural theme rather than the violent paramilitary theme of the Troubles. Just last weekend here, there was a Loyalist march right along this street, the shop windows and street still decorated with red, white and blue bunting. But not only do they march through their own Protestant area, they also march through the Catholic area for no other reason than to antagonize the Catholics.
You look at the people on the street, they look just like us, they look just like the Catholics we see in the Falls, and you wonder why so much blood was shed.
POLITICAL TOUR of THE FALLS
Brian and I were interested in learning more about the “Troubles” so book a walking tour of the Falls area.
Paul our guide meets us in front of Divas Tower, a tall block of flats that the British soldiers had used the top 3 floors of as an observation post during the conflict. It has commanding views of the wall and Falls Road.
Paul was a IRA volunteer and had spent 10 years in jail during the eighties as a political prisoner. As he walked us through the area he pointed out to us where the first gun shots were fired, and places where friends and family had been shot and sometimes killed.
Having spent his whole life here, apart from the years in jail he knew the area well. Many people that passed by called out their greetings, as we walked past the headquarters of the Sinn Fein he introduced us to the leader and other members of the party.
Getting closer to the area he grew up he told us about one day when he was fourteen years old, and coming from school for lunch when a British Patrol drove past him, stopped a little way down the road, and pointed a rifle at him and then fired. Instinctively he ducked and the rubber bullet bounced harmlessly off a wall nearby. I’m sure that he wasn’t totally innocent during his teenage years. He tells of he and his mates standing watch on corners and then passing on the movements of the British troops to the IRA, and of house-wives banging garbage can lids to alert them of the same.
We ask what it was like to live here through those times and he said that’s just what you did, all he knew. This man certainly wasn’t innocent during these times, the reason he was in jail was that he was caught placing a bomb in a Belfast building.
We spent four hours with this Irishman, and after we parted company we felt that we have a little more insight into the ‘Troubles’ than we had previously.
DOWNPATRICK...St Patrick's Grave
We take a drive out of Belfast heading south, and it’s not long before you are back in the country, surrounded by farmers fields filled with cattle and sheep.
Surprisingly we have only seen one field planted with potatoes since arriving in Ireland.
We did see a funny sight this morning, an elderly gentleman, complete with flat cap and Donegal Tweed jacket had driven his tractor into town apparently to do his shopping. As we passed him he was loading his green grocery bags into the bucket on the front of the tractor, just as normal a thing as we would put our groceries into the boot of our cars. Brian and I looked at each other, laughed and said ‘did you see that’. It would have made a great picture, and he probably would have wondered what the fuss was about.
Arriving into Downpatrick , Down Cathedaral was easily recognized sitting atop of ‘The Mound of Down’. Evidence is that a cathedral has been on this site since the fifth century.
Destroyed and pillaged from the Vikings, Edward the Bruce, and of course Henry VIII and Cromwell fragments of the churches built here over the have been discovered and are housed in the local museum.
But what we braved the pouring rain and biting wind this day was the grave of St Patrick. The Apostle of Ireland, as he is called here, is buried in the graveyard alongside the present church, his grave marked by a large stone with writing so ancient that it can barely discernable. Pilgrimages to his grave are still held here each year.
BELFAST
We arrive into Belfast around 10.30am on Sunday morning and the first thing we notice
is the absence of people.
Well there are a few wandering around, the obvious ‘haven’t made it home from last nighters’ and then of course the tourists like us wondering where you can get a coffee.
Finally we find a coffee shop open, and by the number of other people in there, others know about it as well. Mentioning to the waitress how quiet it is in central Belfast, she say’s “None of the shops here open until 1pm, Sunday is a day of rest you know”
The shops are closed, but the sightseeing buses had started so we bought our tickets, got a couple of seats upstairs and were ready to explore this once troubled city.
We have worked out over these past months that the best way to get a really feel for the layout of the city is on the sightseeing bus. They take you to all the places of interest, and you can jump on and off wherever you like along the route, or we usually just stay on for the whole tour, then get off and walk back to the places interest us.
During ‘The Troubles’ Belfast like Derry was once a fortified city, and still to this day you see buildings like the court house and Police stations surrounded with high cement walls topped with razor wire and more CCTV cameras than you can imagine.
Since the onset of the Troubles in 1971, Nationalist (Catholic), and Loyalist (Protestant) communities have been divided by Peace Walls. These large concrete and steel barriers, ranging in length from a few hundred meters to over 5 kms in length and designed to protect neighbourhoods from attack, and to retain a sense of peace and protection. The first barriers were constructed in the early 1970’s, multiplying over the year’s to 18 in the early 1990’s to 40 today. There are a few gates in these walls, and at 5pm on Friday night until 7am Monday morning they remain locked.
They say that when they can trust that the violence is over, the walls will come down.
THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY and the CARRICK-A-REDE ROPE BRIDGE
We thought we had seen some very nice coast-line this past three weeks here, and of course the Australian coast is spectacular and hard to beat..
But to-day on our way across the top of Northern Ireland we were visually stunned .
The Giant’s Causeway is a World Heritage Site and the eighth wonder of the world.
It consists of approximately 40,000 tightly packed hexagonal basalt columns, some 12m tall. Formed 60 to 70 million years ago by volcanic eruption and then cooling lava. It is pretty touristy, in fact we have seen and heard more Aussie’s in the past three day’s than we have the past 3 months, but it’s a place we have all heard about so we did the couple of kilometre walk to see these giant columns, and I guess it was worth it.
The Bushmills Distillery has been here since 1608, and is the oldest distillery in the world. We make a brief stop, check out the whiskey making process but at the end of the tour decline the free samples in favour for a coffee because……
the next stop on this coastal road is the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, it spans a 18m chasm and is 24m above the crashing waves. From here the coast of Scotland clearly visible. It apparently is put up every Spring by fishermen for access to a salmon fishery.
This one’s not for the faint-hearted. Check out the photo looking down from the bridge.
The next part of this coastline is called The Glens, and this is a lovely area. All the glens are named after a local tale or legend, Glenarm, Glenclif and Glenariff to name a few. It is suggested we have dinner at the local golf club where the scenery from the course and club house is beautiful, we watch the sun slip behind the hills while eating a great dinner, then make our way back down to our B & B for a good nights sleep in preparation for the tomorrows short drive into Belfast.
IS IT LONDONDERRY or DERRY?
We pass in Northern Ireland with no fuss at all.
No signs of the checkpoints are evident, and apart from the highway signs now being back to miles per hour, and petrol prices in pounds, it looks the same as the area we just passed through the last 3 weeks here.
The official name is now Derry, but you still hear it called Londonderry, I guess it all depends on which side of the wall you live.
Derry itself is a historic walled city, and surprisingly after all “The Troubles” this city has gone through over the past 500 years looks intact now. Much of the city has been re-built since in the past 10 years, but if you look closely the battle scars are still evident of the years of fighting this city has gone through.
We take a sightseeing bus tour and the guide points out various locations of interest, some of which we walk back to after the tour ends.
We start in the Protestant area, touring the Orange Museum, our guide proudly told us about the marches still held here twice a year. Fanaticism is always scary. We saw the banners held during the march of the Apprentice Boys in 1969, that sparked off 3 days of intensive fighting known as ‘The Battle of the Bogside’, and the disturbance seen as the start of ‘The Troubles’ here. He even mentioned of a branch in Australia if we were interested.
We then cross under the wall into the Catholic area called The Bogside, to see the murals painted depicting key events since the 1960’s.
We also visit the Museum of Free Derry, established by the Bloody Sunday Trust which tells the story from the Catholic side of view of it’s civil rights movement and the creation of Free Derry in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Actual footage of the Bloody Sunday demonstration, taken by a young photographer who was killed that day in the attack by the British Army is shown as well as many other photo’s, rubber bullets and milk bottles similar to those used as petrol bombs.
Brian and I both have both come away from our visit to Derry with different feelings. Truly the violence on both sides was horrific, and so many innocent lives were lost from both sides and I think you can still feel an underlying tension, but I hope for all here that peace remains and this country continues to heal.
DONEGAL and the FAMINE VILLAGE
Donegal Town, once the chief stronghold of the O’Donnells and where their castle still sits to this day. We tour Donegal Castle, faithfully restored, and Brian is in awe of the vaulted wood ceiling, put together with not one single nail.
St Patrick spent time here and there is a cavern where legend has it he spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting. Each year thousands of people come to Lough Derg to spend 3 days and 3 nights fasting and praying.
We move further northwest in Donegal and onto it’s peninsula, the most northern point in Ireland. So once again we have travelled this island from it’s most southerly tip in County Kerry, to the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal.
Like Maeve’s Mound, we first catch sight of Grianan of Aileach or also known as the Sun Palace of Aileach from a distance. It was once the royal seat of the O’Neills, and a sacred meeting place for the high kings of Ireland. A dry stone fort built around 1700 BC, it perches 344m above the sea with vast panoramic views in all directions.
We do visit a famine village that tells the story of the Great Irish Famine and how the population dropped from 8million to 4million through death and emigration.
The houses here were part of the actual village and our guide lived here until 1982.
IRISH SPOKEN HERE
I have failed to mention the fact that the further north you get in The Republic of Ireland the more you are immersed in the Gaeltacht or Irish speaking regions.
One television station and at least one radio station is Irish language only, and in many towns one side of the road and directional signs are in Irish. There have been many round-abouts we have circled twice because the first time around we didn’t catch the English side
Like the language we heard spoken in Wales, the sing-song sounding Gaeltacht, bears no resemblance to it’s English equivalent.
Also on the TV news, weather reports etc., you hear no mention of Northern Ireland, and if you do hear about it, it is called ‘the other Ireland’. Although there is no border as such, they are distinctly two countries.
SLIGO to MAEVE’S MOUND
This area is rich in archaeological remains, from Megalithic to Medieval.
Dolmen tombs, ring forts, standing stones and high Celtic crosses dot the area.
We visit Carrowmore the largest megalithic cemetery in Ireland. Thirty passage tombs dating around 4000BC still survive. Many more would have been plundered during raids, and later cleared by farmers over the past centuries. The tombs consist of a circle of large boulders with a roofed chamber in the centre. The fixed, enduring and visible stone monuments in which lay the bones of their ancestors would have been an important ritual centre for the Stone Age inhabitants for this area . The deliberate layout of the cemetery is around an area of free space where ritual activity may have taken place.
You can see ‘Maeve’s Mound’ in Knocknarea, from miles around.
Queen Maeve was a Ancient Celtic warrior queen that legend has it, waged a war with Ulster in which 1000’s of soldiers were killed, and all over who had the best bull do you believe. Celtic women were not bound by the confines of monogamy even within marriage. Legend has it Queen Maeve was infamous for her beauty and her sexual prowess. She had an array of lovers, most of whom were officers in her army which thereby ensured the loyalty of her troops. Her bravest warriors were granted sexual favors, so the men fought hard and courageously on the battlefield for a chance to enjoy Maeve's "willing thighs."
Her grave mound sit high atop a 328m hill, that you must climb, so we park Josephine in the lot at the foot of the hill and start climbing the muddy, stony track to her cairn.
This extraordinary tomb is 192m around it’s base, 24m high and 31m in diameter, no wonder you can see it for miles.
It is said that Maeve is buried in full battle gear, spear in hand, facing her Ulster enemies even in death.
It is hard to comprehend the time and work that this massive tomb must have taken the ancient inhabitants of this land.
The track was nearly as hard to come down as it was to climb, but so very worth while.
After our ‘mountain climb’ we are in need of a coffee so head to Bundoran, a famous surfing beach here where the Quicksilver Masters Surfing Championship has been held. Racks of wetsuits that can be rented hung outside the surf-shop, probably needed all year here.
There was also a spa that caught my eye, they use seaweed collected from the beach
that is used in hot sea water baths, then the oil from the seaweed used for your massage. We didn’t have the time or the cash to try this out, but what a great idea for a Qld spa.
GALWAY TO SLIGO
After 2 nights in Galway we are ready to continue our trek north. We leave County Galway and head north west into County Mayo, and William Butler Yeats country.
It is said the heather clad moors and rocky hillocks gave Yeats inspiration for many of his poems and plays.
This area was also one of the worst hit during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849. Masses of people either starved or took off on sailing ships to the west, the United States, never to return. Deserted farms and villages lay scattered throughout this region.
Many homes are still heated with peat, dug from the boggy ground. You always know who has the fire on here, the sweet smell of the burning peat is un-mistakeable.
We stay the night in Westport, probably one of the prettiest towns we have seen in Ireland, in an old convent, now converted into a hostel. It’s basic but clean and we do have use of a kitchen, a bonus these days believe it or not so off to the market we go. I cook a baked dinner and we catch up on the laundry, so we have clean undies and socks and as a bonus, cold meat leftovers for the next day.
Had a chance to have a look around the shops and check out the latest fashion here in shoes, you can see them in the pics above.
THE CLIFFS of MOHER TO GALWAY
We pass lush green valleys and cross the meandering Shannon River on our way to The Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s natural wonders.
We are lucky to have a fine and sunny day to see this dramatic area covering 8km’s of County Clare’s Atlantic coast. These 210m cliffs stand as massive jutting bastions and are a nesting area for various seabirds, including puffins and gulls. Even though we were there early it became very touristy so we hopped back into Josephine and headed into the heart of County Clare to ‘The Burren’.
You can only describe this 259 square kilometre area as ‘lunar-like’.
The story of the Burren started more than 300 million years ago when layers of shell and sediment lay under a tropical sea. The limestone is massively bedded, some areas are 1000m thick. Traces of acid in the rain, is slowly dissolving the terraced limestone and gives fascinating shapes and solids.
We arrive into Galway City, Irelands fastest growing city, and we can see why.
It has the charm of a small town but is today Ireland’s most prosperous city. The downtown area has a cobble-stoned shopping precinct and on this weekday is busy with tourists and buskers.
We will spend the next two days here and tomorrow will spend the day looking around the old area of the city.
COUNTY KERRY TO LIMERICK
We find ourselves once again on a small ferry that cuts a good couple of hours off our drive and takes us into Tralee.
The Rose of Tralee Festival, an annual event has only just finished so luckily we have missed most of the crowds, also accommodation prices are coming down slowly and after next week when schools are back in will be much less expensive.
We notice that the farms here are much bigger and more prosperous here than we have seen for a while. Black faced sheep and fat cattle graze in lush green fields edged by stone walls.
In Limerick we catch up with The Tour of Ireland, a bike race, similar to the Tour d France, but on a smaller version. We watch the start of the day’s 180 km stage, which take the riders around the Dingle Peninsula, back over the area we covered yesterday. This will be a hard day for the riders, they have to climb the Conor Pass, a 410m climb and with the narrow lanes, and drizzly rain today they will have to be in top form to complete this stage. There is a team here representing Australia, and we gave them an extra loud cheer as they ride past us.
We visit a few historical sites, then head back to our hotel to plan the next leg of ‘Our Tour of Ireland’, The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren and County Galway.
THE RINGS OF KERRY- THE DINGLE PENINSULA
Josephine does well to climb the steep pass over the mountain range.
Fuschia hedgerows 6 feet high line the narrow road once we descended into the valley and the southwestern extremity called Slea Head. This area is teaming with artefacts from the Stone, Bronze and Celtic Iron ages. The Gallerus Oratory is a dry stone church and 1300 years old. It is built in the shape of an upturned boat with some of the walls 4 feet thick. The stones have a downward and outward tilt so that water is shed, this method is called corbelling and is still used to this day by bricklayers.
We stop at a pub, called the North Pole which was previously owned by one of Scotts team, lots of interesting pictures lined the walls, and our fellow diners were quite colourful.
Bee-hive shaped stone huts surrounded by stone walls were inhabited by peaceful family groups that lived here from ancient times to about 1200 AD, when after being invaded by the Vikings and then the Normans, their way of life was lost forever.
It’s extraordinary to think that these structures still stand to this day.
We travel in and out of low cloud, fog, showery rain and weak sunshine all day, it’s a shame because I’m sure the scenery is quite spectacular, if only you could see it all!
