Northern Ireland - My First Visit

The Harbour in Donaghadee

For a blog about Switzerland and Egypt, this is beginning to turn into something more like a round-the-world trip. Anyway, as well as meeting up with my brothers, attending wedding celebrations, I was, of course, also going to Northern Ireland on two occasions to visit Pam.

I’d never actually been to Northern Ireland before. It’s one of those strange facts of life that you never visit anywhere that’s close to where you were brought up, but if you live abroad, you explore everywhere around you and it just seems so much more exciting than exploring your home country. And, so, I’d never been to Northern Ireland because it was just too close to (my original) home.

All the tales about the Irish being very talkative are completely true. I was a bit hungry when I landed, so I popped into the little (“wee”) store at the airport to buy myself a chocolate bar. There was an old man in the queue in front of me and even though I was obviously waiting to be served, the sales assistant just kept on talking and talking and talking to this man she was serving. She had all day. He had all day. Talk, talk, talk. If I’d have been in a hurry, I could have been annoyed, but fortunately I was feeling fairly chilled and just found it amusing. Also, I guessed the old man was probably glad of a bit of chit-chat.

Pam and I also joked about how everything is a “wee” this and a “wee” that in Northern Ireland. You buy your wee chocolate and the wee woman at the till puts it into a wee bag for you. Opposite my hotel window, there was a picture with “our wee country” written on it as if to emphasise the point.

It felt quite strange being in Northern Ireland and it reminded me of when I first went to Scotland. You can sort of identify it as being part of your culture (if you’re a Brit), but at the same time it felt distinctly different. It definitely wasn’t England. Also, like in Scotland, they print their own notes, so they have Bank of Ireland emblazoned on them, which, if you’re English, makes you panic because you wonder if you’ll get a whole load of hassle when you try to use them in England even though really you shouldn’t have any problem at all because at the end of the day it is the same currency. But the world doesn’t really work like that.

I didn’t really have time to do much sight-seeing. I took a bus tour of Belfast, although it was a bit confusing because there were several different ones to choose from and apparently my ticket allowed me to do two, but I had time only for one of them. I hadn’t realized before that the Titanic was built in Belfast, so the Titanic museum is really a must-see (but I didn’t!). I hear it is really good and the outside of the building is itself impressive. Apparently there were three ships built at the same time – the Titanic wasn’t unique.

The trip also took us to where the “troubles” used to be. I grew up with news of the IRA and bombs always on the television, so most of the names of the areas in Ireland and Belfast in particular are very familiar to me. They are trying to recover from their history and to show how much good there is in Belfast and in Northern Ireland in general. I guess that now there’s a whole generation behind me that didn’t grow up with it as part of their daily life. I lived near London, of course, and not in Northern Ireland, but the “troubles” often spilled over and targeted London, too, but I had no direct experience of it (thankfully), so it still seemed a little removed. There’s still a bit of a struggle to move on and to leave their history behind, but most people I met wanted to be working towards a peaceful future and not to harp on about the past (and here I am talking about it – sorry!).

There’s some really great shopping in Belfast and some even better restaurants. Really, we had some amazing food while we were there and the atmosphere was always buzzing. It was incredibly difficult to find a hotel at the last minute – some of the prices were outrageous, but because of the paucity of hotels, they are able to charge a fortune if you can’t book in advance. But it means that Belfast is thriving, which is a good thing!

The coastline is also beautiful – I sometimes miss the wildness of the sea that we have in the UK since the bay in Sahl Hasheesh is very calm and, of course, the lakes aren’t tidal. There’s an advert in Switzerland claiming that those who live by the sea actually get the most homesick when they see a lake, but I don’t really think that’s true.

Anyway, I would love to go back at some time and see more of it. I hear the countryside is beautiful and I’d love to see the Giant’s Causeway. I don’t know why I never went over before, but I’m glad that because of Pam I have been kicked into making at least a start!