“When revisiting places, it’s a chance to explore a place more deeply and ferret out the nooks amongst the broad strokes.” – Old Sean
Returning to Belfast
Once upon a time, I visited Belfast in a flurry. I had tried (and failed) to hitch a direct ride from Galway to the city, only to eventually be rerouted by bus. This year, I repeated my route, ending up in the outskirts of Belfast with my younger brother and sister.
The culture shock between Northern Ireland and the Republic is tangible, more so than I remember. Belfast has something distinct about it, from the design of the city, the space expanding outwards and the differing religious backgrounds between nations.
I fudged our directions when coming into town, accidentally taking a bus the wrong direction outside of the city center. The only advantage to this was a somewhat swift view of the city. We got to see the ever-evolving and controversial Peace Walls (or Peace Barriers) which are used as a political outlet since The Troubles.
After arriving in Belfast, my brother, sister and I went out for dinner, discovering a pizza restaurant called Little Wing Pizzeria. The tiny shop serves absolutely enormous pizzas, large enough to cover an entire table. It was delicious, but deceptively expensive. Twenty three Irish-printed pounds is a fairly hefty sum of money, especially when mentally cataloging cash as US dollars and Euros.
Regardless, after dinner, we went back to our Airbnb (where everyone lucked into having a private bed) and prepared for tomorrow.
A Walk Around Town
The following day was our Belfast Exploration day. The idea was that we could explore a few interesting sights around the Belfast area, wandering in and out of strange shops, pubs and arcades.
As we rolled into town, we stood briefly outside City Hall where a preacher was haranguing pedestrians with a Bible in his hand. His assistant, a rather rapturous-expression woman in wool, danced with her arms flailing loosely in a classic Come-To-God plea. The preacher was doing his utmost to be abrasive, confrontational and contentious, but people simply gave him a wide berth when entering the City Hall Gardens for photos.
I always feel a little bit of pity for those sorts. I don’t actually imagine they’re accomplishing anything with their stump-speech efforts.
Anyway, once we had delved somewhat further into the city, we popped by The Crown Liquor Saloon, a legendary pub caked in Victorian decorations and trappings. The Saloon is beautiful, with ornate carvings of lions and griffons on banisters, printed windows, textured ceiling and a bar to make a whiskey-lover weep. The actual seated booths are surprisingly private, with wooden walls creating privacy barriers.
The Ulster Museum
After visiting the Saloon, I pushed to visit my favorite museum in Northern Ireland, The Ulster Museum. The museum is absolutely jammed full of Northern-Irish-related displays, expositions and features. We opted to walk to the museum, since it’s only twenty minutes from the city center.
Before heading into the Ulster Museum, we also stopped by the Belfast Botanic Gardens and The Palm House. Both are delightful. The Palm House is a balmy Victorian greenhouse made of arched iron and tons of leafy plants. The outer Botanic Gardens are sprawling trails meandering through rose platforms, public-exhibition photos and tall hedges. Despite the drizzle of rain, we powered through the area until entering the Ulster Museum.
The Ulster Museum is a strangely designed geometric building with a blazingly white interior. Part of the reason this is so impressive is due to the three whicker-wood dragons which are hung from the upper ceiling.
Recalling Game of Thrones
Four years ago, I visited the Ulster Museum and the Western World was gripped by the cultural sensation of Game of Thrones. The TV show had not yet entered its devastating decline and Belfast was extremely proud that much of the TV show had been filmed around its territory.
One feature of this pride was an enormous, hand-woven tapestry stretched out for dozens of meters, meticulously depicting all the events of Game of Thrones. I had been very lucky to see the tapestry during my first visit four years ago, just before it went on tour elsewhere. Much to my pleasure, it returned just in time for me to show it to my siblings, a mere five days earlier.
The tapestry is extremely impressive and served as a reminder to many of the books I once read carefully. But the latter portion of the tapestry only displays the last few TV events of Game of Thrones, a largely reviled final two seasons of poor writing, incoherent plot lines, characters operating in defiance of personalities and pointless, undramatic deaths.
Belfast is actually interesting for its accidental dedication to Game of Thrones. During the show’s peak, hoards of tourists would visit sites depicted in the series. However, Game of Thrones ended so poorly in the eyes of its fans, its stranglehold on popular culture evaporated nearly overnight. Belfast has tons of Game of Thrones points of interest around it, including stain-glass depictions of events near the waterways, small plaques discussing actors or a shrinking shelf of knick-knacks in tourist shops. Sadly, these have become passing interests to most tourists, instead of destinations actively sought out.
Studious
Regardless, the Ulster Museum had much more to offer than an homage to a defunct HBO series.
The upper levels are filled with educational features of natural sciences, including dinosaur fossils and egg imprints, stuffed creatures, both extinct in Ireland or endangered, various representations of sea life and flora and numerous notes on mythological creatures of the Isle.
Below, the museum marches through ancient Irish History. However, the most compelling were the exhibits dedicated to recent events. The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were famously locked in a grueling terrorism and counter-terrorism campaign between Loyalist and Union Factions.
In an oversimplified statement, the Loyalist supporters, which were predominantly Protestant in Northern Ireland, supported remaining part of the United Kingdom’s Government. Union forces, which were largely Southern Ireland Catholics, desired for the reunification of Ireland as a whole, joining the ancient Ulster Province to the recently established Republic of Ireland to the South. The domestic civil war, which goes by a number of other names, was eventually ended by the clandestine Good Friday Agreement of 1995.
However, Northern Ireland and Ireland remember the events strongly, and the nuance of the political situation creates powerful undercurrents to this day. Even with the Ulster Museum’s considerable revelations, both artistic and historical, the conversation is something of a rude landmine field for foreign visitors.
A Downtown Stroll
After we finally left the museum, my sister’s ankle began aching sharply again. A recurring problem on this trip has been my sister’s inability to walk long distances due to this mysterious injury. As such, we took a bus back into Central Belfast and left her seated and resting at a café. My brother and I continued our exploring.
We first managed to visit The Titanic Memorial Garden, just outside of City Hall. The alabaster-white statue is a monument to one of the most famous disasters on the world stage. The sinking of the Titanic has a special place in Belfast’s psyche, since Starline, the company which built the ship, was based largely in Belfast.
I next cajoled my brother into walking to Albert Memorial Clock with me (which tilts slightly right) for a few more photos. Afterwards, I gleefully directed him to the Salmon of Knowledge, one of my favorite literary creatures in Irish Lore.
Fionn and the Salmon of Knowledge
The Salmon of Knowledge prominently features in The Boyhood Tales of Fionn, where the young hero visits a famed poet to educate himself on the arts, music and logic needed for a hero to succeed. The poet has a mission of his own; the capture of the legendary Salmon of Knowledge. The Salmon had long-since gained supernatural intelligence by eating hazelnuts from the Well of Wisdom and was a very wily foe. However, eating its flesh would ensure the consumer would have all the wisdom of the world afterward. When the poet and Fionn eventually succeed, Fionn is the one to eat the Salmon, either by malice, accident or trickery depending on the tale.
The Salmon of Knowledge appears in other Irish legends as well, often as an active character. Sometimes druids or minor gods transform into the salmon for their own escape or purposes. In other stories, the salmon is insulted or assaulted by a callous Irish girl, and the salmon summons a beast to attack and devour her.
Regardless, I was happy to see the Salmon lounging once again on Belfast’s shores. My brother and I wandered a bit further up and down the river before collecting my sister from her restful café and heading back to home base.
A Northern Tour
The following day proved much more active. Against my better judgment, I again picked a tour. With my sister unable to walk the daunting distances I usually adore, tours are one of the only ways to visit the locations I love.
As such, at 9:30 AM, my family and I piled into a garishly-painted green and orange bus called The Paddywagon.
We trundled along the road either snoozing or listening to the bus driver describe Northern Ireland in a strong accent. Our first stop was the road known as The Dark Hedges. A rather lofty name for a strand of trees going through a field, the Dark Hedges gained some local fame as a road filmed during Game of Thrones. The trees and trail are still very pretty, but the film-fan-factor has somewhat rubbed off in the past few years.
Our next stop was much more impressive. Dunluce Castle is a cliffside castle ruin closed to the public due to its unstable nature. Supposedly, the castle once belonged to a rich man who fancied himself a King. He began printing coins with his likeness stamped on the front. This affront to the status quo angered the reigning Queen, who evicted the man from his castle to a life of squalor. In her triumph, the Queen moved into the castle as a vacation home. But on the first night in her new residence, the cliffside castle pitched. An entire wall of the structure, including the entire kitchen, crumbled into the sea taking sixty lives with it.
Now, it mostly makes very good selfies.
Tales of the Causeway
After passing the castle, we made it to our prime destination, The Giant’s Causeway.
The Giant’s Causeway is a volcanic structure from ages ago, where geology conspired to make hexagonal pillar steps walking into the sea. The unique stone formation in an extremely picturesque curve of cliffs-and-countryside has given rise to uncountable legends. The most famous of these legends again features Fionn mac Cumhaill with numerous variations.
In the Giant Causeway Story, Fionn isn’t depicted as normal, the great human fighter and leader of the Irish Fianna (a roving warrior band of great reclaim). Instead, he is often shown as a giant. The antagonist of the tale is another giant from Scotland known as Benandonner.
The two giants, upon seeing one another on a clear day between the isles, begin shouting insults at one another. The pair eventually reach a state of rage where honor demands they clash. Both begin prying rocks free to make a bridge towards one another.
However, as the bridges grow close, Fionn grows pale. The opposing giant isn’t big, but an absolutely gargantuan figure of muscle and rage. Fionn scampers away as Benandonner looms near, pelting to his wife to ask for advice.
Though the actual identity of Fionn’s wife changes with the story, she is always very, very clever. In a fit of inspiration, Fionn’s wife demands her husband rush out to craft an enormous cradle. Then, while he’s hard at work, she bakes several loaves of bread with a great rock hidden in each one.
Bennadonner, with the bridge complete, thunders across the land, shouting for Fionn. He arrives at Fionn’s castle, demanding entry.
Fionn’s wife stuffs her husband into a freshly made cradle, stitches him a baby bonnet and brings in Benandonner. She tells the giant that Fionn is out hunting, but will return for his death-match soon enough.
By the gods below the giant thought with dread. What an enormous baby. Imagine the size of the man who sired such a whelp.
Fionn’s wife offers Benandonner her husband’s favorite bread snacks, stating that he has a dozen each meal. The giant manages to break all his teeth on the rocks hidden within, cowing him even more.
Gods below, what kind of man might eat these and find joy?
Fionn begins to wail with such strength that his castle wobbles. The giant Benandonner flinches back with another thought.
Gods below, if that’s how the babe can yell, imagine his father!”
Fionn’s wife, feigning concern, demands Benandonner give Fionn a thumb to suckle on. But when the giant’s thumb draws close, Fionn bites the tip clean off, causing the giant to howl and flee.
So terrified of the idea of Fionn, father of such a powerful child, Benandonner sprints all the way back to Scotland. He tears up his constructed bridge, leaving only the stones of the Giant’s Causeway intact.
The story from the Irish side is an extremely enjoyable one, and the hexagonal stones do indeed seem constructed, rather than natural. My siblings and I enjoyed the area immensely, hiking along high cliffs, sticking close to the sea and dancing along rock steps until our time was done.
Our final stop on the tour prior to lunch was the Carrick-a-Rede, a famous rope-bridge protected by the National Trust leading to a tiny island. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed across the bridge on this tour, instead looking at it from afar nearby a stout horse and his field.
Rallying
Our remaining time in Belfast was spent wandering around the last few narrow arcades of the city. It was a pleasant segue into the evening, after which we rested, rallied and prepared to depart again.
Currently, my family and I are on a ferry entering Scotland. The nation’s shores have just appeared on the horizon, low, shadow rolls of land emerging quietly from the water.
In Scotland, we’ll be visiting the two largest tourist cities in the territory, Glasgow and Edinburgh at the height of festival and tourist season.
I’m prepared to be amused.
Until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written June 30th 2022
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