NORTHERN IRELAND

24th July, 2016 (Sally)

It’s a peaceful day on the river Saône as we cruise downstream to Lyon, hard to believe in the horrors that struck Nice last week when all around one sees only lush countryside and small towns and of course the wide stretch of this magnificent river. Looking back on the past month we have seen a dramatic change in weather from continual rain as we cruised from Paray le Monial to Genelard, where we stayed for a week waiting in vain for the fine weather, then on to Ecusses to meet Miles and Tania off the TGV and later Nicole and her friend Woody as well. Miraculously the weather then became brilliant and we all enjoyed Burgundy at its best. Lots of eating and drinking, well why not, and a welcome change for me to have the MasterChef aboard.  At Changy we took the train to Beaune for a day, and then they all left to spend a couple of days in Lyon, more eating and drinking as Lyon is renowned as the culinary capital of France. Miles and Tania came back from Lyon by hire car and we spent one more day with them on a trip to the great town of Cluny with the ruins of the monastery. Then they left for the delights of Champagne while we continued on to Fragnes where we left Sable to travel to Manchester and then to Northern Ireland.  

We arrived back from our trip to Ireland on July 13th in time for a local Bastille Day celebration. The local football team catered for 300 with a three course meal served under the impressive Market hall, and a very good job they did too. We had a bowl full of Mussels and chips and a cheese course and desert, then the music started and the fireworks. We had been travelling since 5.30am so once again we were in bed before they began.

Northern Ireland was fun. We travelled by train from Chalon to Paris, then by Eurostar to London, a quick taxi ride to Euston Station and train again to Manchester. Surprisingly quicker than if we had gone by plane as any flight involved long lay overs. We met my sister Myra in Manchester so we had a couple of days there before flying to Belfast. Thank goodness for the BBC and their antique programs, we had seen a session set in Manchester so we knew to visit the Town Hall which was built at the peak of the cotton trade, and also the Lowry Art Gallery which was also featured on the same program. Both were well worth the visit, we also saw the Imperial War Museum, a very striking modern building and a quick glimpse of Manchester United’s stadium as we drove past. It’s an interesting city, obvious poverty with lots of homeless people but many stunning new buildings and some well-preserved old ones. A better experience than we expected.

Off to Belfast the next day and as soon as we had booked into our hotel we took a bus to the new Titanic museum. The outside is amazing, and the exhibits inside are just as good. Certainly a must if you are in the city. We spent the next day touring the northern coast, on our way to the two most well-known sights of that area, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and Giants Causeway. The bridge spans a 20m gap 30m high to a rocky outcrop and is second on the list of the world’s scariest bridges. We all thought that whoever compiled that list had not walked the Milford Track in NZ. We were more scared at the number of people on it in spite of the official warning for only eight at one time. Giants Causeway was everything we hoped for, 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns, and in spite of the hordes of people still plenty of space to sit and marvel. We had stopped on the way at Glenarm where we discovered a story involving perhaps a long lost ancestor.  Apparently in the 1200s a John Bisset from Scotland exacted revenge on a neighbour by burning down his house. Unfortunately for both parties the neighbour was in residence so Bisset was charged with murder. He negotiated to do penance in the Holy land but went the other way and on arriving in Ireland built himself a castle at Glenarm. It’s now in the hands of the Earl of Antrim but a good story and if not really an ancestor, one you would like to pretend to claim. The castle was of some interest but the real attraction was the large walled garden, lovely floral borders and a magnificent veggie garden. It rained part of every day we were in Ireland, obviously much easier to grow things in that climate.

On our last day in Belfast we took the Black Cab tour, a very sobering experience. Our cab driver took us to the Falls Road and Shankhill Road areas where The Troubles started and still go on to this day. The two streets are divided by a three mile wall, in places 13m high. They call it the peace wall as it is meant to keep the peace between the self-contained communities of catholics and protestants. Four large gates are shut every night and opened again in the morning. Murals have been painted on lots of walls celebrating heroes who died and of course the biggest mural was for King Billy, as he is known to the Loyalists. We were there during the week when the Orange day marches take place, and combined with that huge bonfires are lit to celebrate the Battle of Boyne 400 years ago. The bonfires are huge, mainly of pallets constructed in a circular pyre, the main one in Shankhill to emulate the spires of St Peter’s cathedral, but some use old tyres in defiance of laws and common sense. It was all a bit sobering and difficult to come to terms with — nowadays it’s more about politics than religion. The cost of welfare borne by the British Government must be enormous.

We were pleased to move out of Belfast to the village of Hillsborough about 14 miles south. We had a nice cottage there and used that as a base to explore. One particularly wet day we went to Lisburn to see the Linen Museum. What a huge industry that was for Ireland and so labour intensive. We watched a lady spinning by hand the linen thread which would have been woven on hand looms, and most of that was done in cottage industry with the whole family involved in some way. Very little flax is still grown in Ireland; most of the mills now import the raw fibre from Russia.

On a better day we drove to Mt Stewart, a National Trust home and garden, and then spent a day touring the Mourne Mountains. It was nice to come home each night to the cottage and either eat at home or in one of the local pubs. On our last day we finally got to visit Hillsborough Castle which is the Royal Residence for when any are in Ireland and also the home of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It’s a working castle so has a certain warmth about it compared to unlived-in stately homes and we were all surprised that we could walk around, sit on chairs and generally feel you were visiting not just looking from afar. Wonderful paintings on loan from the royal collection, all with some significance to the house, and photos from meetings and conferences that have taken place there.  The gardens there are as nice if not more so than Mt Stewart. That might be because they have a bigger budget with nine full-time gardeners. We met one of them who invited us into the walled garden, usually out of bounds as it is under reconstruction, but at his invitation we ate our fill of royal strawberries, red and black currants. 

Our last meal was in one of the village hotels where the local marchers were gathering after a huge day celebrating. They had marched up and down the street in the morning, taken by bus to Lisburn to march again then back again to do another circuit of Hillsborough. Fortunately no violence this year but in Belfast the bonfire we saw being constructed did send some sparks into the neighbourhood roofs, as predicted by everyone, and several homes were gutted. Common sense would say that next year the bonfire should be shifted but I am sure it will be in the same place again.  Although we enjoyed our visit to Northern Ireland it seemed to us that we were still in England. We all felt that southern Ireland is somehow more attractive and people warmer and friendlier.

We set off from Fragnes, down the Saône, 145 km to Lyon — four days gently cruising, cloudless skies, 40C sun. The heat in Lyon was oppressive, radiating off the pavements and buildings. It is a wonderful city, lots of interesting places to explore and fabulous shops. The new musée and conference centre at the confluence of the Saône and Rhone are stunning. But the hot weather drew countless numbers of young people down to the quays to escape the heat of their apartments and to drink and frolic all through the nights and it became unbearable to remain; two nights were enough — we barely slept a wink. We have now retreated to Macon and tomorrow we’ll set off up the Seille, to Cuisery, destination of the voyagers in The Little Paris Bookshop and Louhans.