Fall truly, madly, deeply in love with Northern Ireland
Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 09:48 AM
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| Susan pictured on Rathlin Island |
Not only have I jumped into Northern Ireland but I have fallen truly, madly deeply in love with it following a recent trip up there on a sublime day out to Rathlin Island.
Up there differentiates the North from the South ie the Republic of Ireland (26 counties) which is Irish and the wee North (six counties) which is technically British, with the population still divided over which country it should really belong to. I know it’s confusing, but thankfully the ‘troubles’ are over and Northern Ireland is doing its best to rebuild its reputation as a safe and wonderful destination to visit.
Up there differentiates the North from the South ie the Republic of Ireland (26 counties) which is Irish and the wee North (six counties) which is technically British, with the population still divided over which country it should really belong to. I know it’s confusing, but thankfully the ‘troubles’ are over and Northern Ireland is doing its best to rebuild its reputation as a safe and wonderful destination to visit.
Belfast is the capital /main city (it’s impossible to be politically correct) and is enjoying a great revival with the opening of the Titanic Quarter this centenary year, which has focused the worlds media on a formally forgotten corner of Ireland, that is well worth exploring.
Less than 2 hours from Dublin, Belfast is the gateway to the glens of Antrim and the famous Giants Causeway Dunluce Castle which is on most tourists itineraries. But there is so much more to see where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea, Carlingford and its Lough.
Belfast itself and that fantastic coastal drive through Cushendall, Cushendun, Carnlough, Torr Head and all the way around to Portrush (a famous golf resort) via Ballycastle and the Carrick-a-rede ropebridge, no doubt you have all seen that photo? I hope to explore all the above and more this summer so you can look forward to lots of Northern Hidden Gems been added to my website over the next couple of months and as always if you have any suggestions of your own you would like to include please let me know via email, in the meantime...
Less than 2 hours from Dublin, Belfast is the gateway to the glens of Antrim and the famous Giants Causeway Dunluce Castle which is on most tourists itineraries. But there is so much more to see where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea, Carlingford and its Lough.
Belfast itself and that fantastic coastal drive through Cushendall, Cushendun, Carnlough, Torr Head and all the way around to Portrush (a famous golf resort) via Ballycastle and the Carrick-a-rede ropebridge, no doubt you have all seen that photo? I hope to explore all the above and more this summer so you can look forward to lots of Northern Hidden Gems been added to my website over the next couple of months and as always if you have any suggestions of your own you would like to include please let me know via email, in the meantime...
By Susan Byron author of http://www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/index.html
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Gearoid4 | Oct 01, 2012, 10:41 AM EDT
I agree, Seanmor. The border is an travesty in terms of defining and forming the boundaries of a credible country. It has made economic wastelands of border towns and their natural hinterlands and has disastrously bisected villages, townlands and farmlands. It was imposed by an foreign imperial power with little regard for historical, cultural or linguistic realities. Ulster has long been regarded as the most resistant part of Ireland to English(later British) attempts to eradicate Irish Gaelic culture over the centuries. The Flight of the Earls of Ulster unfortunately ended this heroic fight in 1607.
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Seanmor | Sep 29, 2012, 03:48 PM EDT
Anyone's perceived differences between the patrs of Ireland at either side of the artificial partition are largerly in his/her mind. When I crossed the invisible border the first time in 2006, accompanied by my wife(a New England Methodist), we were about 3 miles into Co. Down before we realized that we were in the North. That evening at a restaurant a group were celebrating a birthday at a nearby table, and said "sláinte" before they had their drink, an expression we hadn't heard in the South. We visited a friend of my wife, a Church of Ireland member, who took us on a tour of the Ards Peninsula and told us the names of several townlnds, all of which are of Irish origin. Despite what Mgt. Thatcher and other staunch partitionists would have us believe, the North is NOT as British as Finchley, in many ways it is scarcely dintinguishable from the South.
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