Belfast

Our last stop on this beautiful island. We couldn’t have picked a better city in which to wind up our trip. Belfast, with a population of around 350,000, is not a large city, but it’s just perfect for us. It has plenty to offer in the way of art, architecture, history, culture, and outdoor activities, and it is incredibly walkable. We’re staying in an apartment a half-mile south of city hall, and our car hasn’t left the parking lot.

Our favorite section of Belfast is the Cathedral Quarter. Off its main roads are small alleyways called “entries” that draw you in by virtue of their snugness. I feel compelled to wander down them, exploring their boutiques, restaurants, and pubs.

The River Lagan waterfront has undergone a major renovation in recent years, beginning with the river itself. A weir was built across the river to allow for control of the tidal river’s water level, making the shallower stretch upstream of the harbor a friendlier place for wildlife, small boat traffic, and development. We chatted for a while with a guy who works at the weir, and he asked us if we wanted a behind-the-scenes tour. Heck, yah! He took us down into the maintenance tunnel that runs under the weir. We walked from bank to bank underneath the river!

The city has commissioned art pieces for the waterfront area as well, including my old friend, the Salmon of Knowledge. [Finn’s Causeway]

Over the centuries, the structure of the river has been straightened and deepened to accommodate increasingly larger ships in the busy harbor. Shipbuilding, a mainstay of Belfast’s economy for centuries, reached a pinnacle in the early 20th century when emigration peaked in Ireland. In 1907 the White Star Line authorized the construction of three Olympic-class luxury liners to assist in the transport of emigrants to America. The second of the three was the HMS Titanic built by Harland & Wolff ship builders in Belfast between 1909 and 1912.

In 2012, the centennial year of Titanic’s maiden voyage and tragic sinking in the North Atlantic, Titanic Belfast, a museum commemorating not only the Titanic phenom but also Belfast’s shipbuilding industry, opened on property that once belonged to Harland & Wolff. We can attest to the quality of the exhibits; we spent three hours taking it all in. We also had lunch in the new Titanic Belfast Hotel on the property, built in the refurbished White Star Line offices. Very classy! 

What was formerly known as Queen’s Island, home to Belfast’s prolific shipbuilding industry, has been renamed the Titanic Quarter and has been a huge boon to Belfast’s tourism industry. The two large, yellow Harland & Wolff (H&W) gantry cranes, nicknamed Samson and Goliath, are no longer in use, as shipbuilding has all but died in Belfast, but were left standing to pay tribute to the industry that made Belfast a major world city. They’re visible from many places throughout the city, and we’re always delighted to see them peeking around a corner.

Finn’s Causeway

steps across the Straits of Moyle to Scotland?

Once upon a time there was an Irish giant named Finn MacCool, or Fionn mac Cumhaill as he called himself in his native language. Finn wasn’t a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk kind of giant. He didn’t eat little children. Nor was he an ogre. He was pretty much a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, just very large. Finn used his hunting and warrior skills to fight evil, for the most part, but occasionally also took care of a few items on his own agenda, as is a giant’s prerogative.

When Finn was a boy, he trained under the druid Finnegas. Finnegas had spent seven years trying to catch the Salmon of Knowledge, a wonder of a fish that lived in the River Boyne and had become all-knowing by living off the hazelnuts of a holy tree. Whoever ate the Salmon of Knowledge would gain from it all the knowledge of the world.

While Finn was under the druid’s care, Finnegas finally caught the fish-of-all-fish. He told Finn to cook it for him, which he did while Finnegas eagerly anticipated his eye-opening meal. But while cooking, Finn burned his thumb and instinctively put it in his mouth, thereby tasting the fish and receiving its knowledge. Far from being angry, when Finnegas saw the light of knowledge in Finn’s eye he made sure Finn polished off every last bite of the salmon. Finn was able to call upon this knowledge in future confrontations with his enemies.

Finn decided to build a path of stepping stones across the twelve miles of water between Ireland and Scotland so he could easily cross without getting his feet wet. One day as he was working on it, he heard that a nasty old giant named Benandonner (definitely one of the ogrey kind) was looking for him. Knowing Benandonner was up to no good, Finn asked his wife Oona to help him hide. Oona dressed Finn as a baby and put him in a cradle. When Benandonner showed up, Oona told him Finn was away but was expected back at any moment. She offered Benandonner a griddle cake she was making. Unbeknownst to Benandonner, Oona had baked griddle irons into some of them. Benandonner took a bite, broke his teeth, and howled like a baby. Oona made fun of him, calling him weak. She fed a cake (without metal in it) to her “baby” who, of course, gobbled it down quite easily. Benandonner, afraid of what the father of this monster-child must be like, decided to clear out before Finn got home. He fled across the causeway to Scotland, destroying it as he went so that Finn couldn’t follow him.

The Giant’s Causeway is a geological wonder of over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns created by the slow cooling and shrinking of lava flows under the sea over 60 million years ago. It is like nothing I have seen before.

This crazy, curious landscape, and the engaging legend the Irish created centuries ago to explain it, is what brought me to Northern Ireland. The rest is icing on the cake.

Crazy Castle

Clonmacnoise Castle

Just outside the monastic site were these crazy remains of Clonmacnoise Castle. One of the many Norman castles built in the 13th century to safeguard the Norman occupation of Ireland, this one was built to secure the midlands, specifically the bridge over the River Shannon, a vital trade route at the time.

We’ve seen lots of ruins, but never any seemingly dumped on their heads! How did this happen? My guess is Finn MacCool was responsible. The legendary Irish giant was accused of throwing boulders across the Irish Sea to Scotland. But more on him later as we make our way to Northern Ireland….