The Inishowen Peninsula - from Fort and Famine to Feast

On the second day of our visit to Co. Donegal we went on a guided tour of the Inishowen Peninsula on Lough Swilly - The Lake of Shadows. This was unusual on two counts - one, we never opt for guided tours, preferring to do our own thing and neither of us like being herded about - look this way and that and then the bus goes in 10 minutes - and two, this was a totally new part of Ireland for us both, which gave the day a real holiday feel.

The Inishowen Peninsula is renowned for Ireland's most northerly point Malin Head - which we didn't get to, but the drive along Lough Swilly on the western side of the peninsula gave a good sense of the place.

The fact that the weather was positively Mediterranean made it even more magical, as coach tours in Ireland are notoriously nightmarish if it's raining. Being incarcerated with about 60 strangers while a chirpy guide extols the virtues of the countryside - shrouded in mist through the condensation on the windows - is most peoples' vision of hell, while the rain from the last expedition across the car park to some unmissable sight drips down the back of your neck and you realise your shoes weren't as waterproof as you'd thought! No, that's not my cup of tea at all, so I enjoyed the afternoon tour of Inishowen for all of the above reasons.

We stopped at two major attractions in the area - Fort Dunree and Doagh Island Famine Village. I'm not really into Military anything, let alone Museums - so I wasn't prepared to be overly impressed by Fort Dunree, a defence point on the shores of Lough Swilly dating from 1798 and which housed the entire British Fleet during the First World War as it sheltered from the Germans. It was actually interesting to hear how it remained in British control until it was handed over to the Irish Government's Defence Forces in 1938. There were a number of key “Treaty Ports” around Ireland that Britain didn't relinquish until well after Irish Independence - and this one was the last to be handed over. The little anecdote about it is that the Union Jack was lowered by one British Officer, and the Irish Tricolour was raised by an Irish Officer - and these two men were brothers-in-law! They were married to two sisters, and I suppose it's a nice metaphor for Anglo-Irish relations after the fraught tensions engendered by Ireland's neutrality in WWII which we euphemistically called "The Emergency". The views from this rocky outcrop were spectacular and I just enjoyed these rather than the dungeon-like bunkers and museum.

Our next port of call was Doagh Famine Village which was absolutely fascinating. The guide spoke at breakneck speed in a strong Donegal accent which really needed subtitles for those of us unaccustomed to it. But what a narrative - very strong social links to current issues, be they famine in other parts of the world or the nation losing the run of itself in the property boom - we' were all getting a bit like the landlords of yore. The exhibits were static and very geared towards the tourist as everything was multi-lingually labelled - French, German and Dutch - probably reflecting the clientèle profile. The fact that someone had the initiative to start up something like this in such a remote corner near the northernmost tip of the island of Ireland has to be impressive, and the owners have a real passion for their work.

The Great Famine of 1845-49 had a lasting impact on the Irish psyche that still resonates and provokes strong emotion in any debate - and clearly demonstrates how famine is and always has been a man-made disaster - the crop failure is almost always incidental and the catalyst is usually social and political ineptitude and apathy. Ireland has never regained its pre-Famine population of 8 million, after over a million died and millions more emigrated on the aptly named "Coffin Ships".

The thatched cottages are lovely and folk-museum-like, and some were positively arcane - in the Ripley's Believe it or Not category, such as the depiction of the Irish Wake tradition in rural Ireland which lives on in so many places. We learnt a lot of trivia that would make the day for any pub quiz aficionado - like the origins of "Dead Ringer", "Saved by the Bell" and the significance of "Snuff at a Wake" - neither of which I knew before. Dead ringer and Saved by the Bell refers to the fear of being alive which led to a string being led from the hand of the corpse in the coffin through a pipe to above ground where it was tied to a bell - and someone sat watch by the grave for a few days - so you could be saved by the bell if you became a dead ringer! (These are hotly disputed origins on some websites so make up your own mind!). Snuff at a wake was extremely popular but could be rationed by being placed on the deceased's chest in the open coffin and as the mourners paid their respects they took a pinch of snuff - and that prevented people coming back for seconds! Normally we would say that something is "thrown around like snuff at a wake" to infer excess and largesse - as in the "banks were throwing money around like snuff at a wake during the boom".

We ended our tour with traditional tea and soda bread and jam in the farmhouse kitchen which was done out in the style of the 1950s - and was a lovely way to wind down the day. We were driven back through the mountains of Insihowen to Buncrana along some of Ireland's most treacherous roads that have claimed numerous young lives in recent months and years - 8 people were killed in one catastrophic head-on collision in July and when you see the roads there is no room for speed as they are pretty unforgiving.

That evening we enjoyed the "craic" at the Gala Dinner for the conference delegates and guests. We were entertained by a lovely choir singing some wonderful harmony and they sang "The Derry Air" better known as "Danny Boy". There was an uninspiring speech from the Minister for Social Protection - an Orwellian rebranding of what was once Social Welfare - Éamon Ó'Cuív, a grandson of DeValera, Ireland's first Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and comes from a political dynasty - something that characterises a lot of what is wrong with Irish politics in that it reinforces a sense of entitlement rather than a meritocracy.

We had a lovely meal and an early night, unlike the previous night when a spontaneous sing-song in the bar kept us up till past 2am and was thoroughly enjoyable. As I write this the Taoiseach (PM) Brian Cowan is in trouble for a poor interview he gave yesterday morning after a late night at his party's conference in Galway and he's being slated for it, as the Twitterati are buzzing with whether or not he was hungover - he was certainly unwise to agree to a Morning Ireland live radio interview at 8.50am when he was drinking and singing in the bar until 3.30am - with the current state of the nation going down the economic tubes there's a strong sense that "the peasants are revolting" against this poor taste and bad judgement - a sort of Nero fiddling while Rome burns moment.

After Donegal we went to the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and drove down to Westport, then on the final day we went home via Connemara, so there's plenty of fodder for another post in a day or two. I hope you enjoy these travelogues and maybe you'll be inspired to visit this corner of Ireland some day.

The photos show:

• Lough Swilly
• Fort Dunree
• Thatched cottage at Dooagh Famine Village
• Plaque at Famine Village
• Depiction of a Famine Eviction
• Me in a cottage kitchen with the "Box Bed"
• Jan and me at the Gala Dinner

A Tale of Two Cities - and a Break on the Border

Last week I went with hubby Jan for a few days to Donegal and Northern Ireland - he had a conference to attend in Buncrana for Town Councillors so I had plenty of time to explore the area while he was at the sessions and we also had time to sightsee together.

Co. Donegal is a beautiful part of the country and I hadn't been up there for over thirty years, while Jan had never been. Neither of us had been in Northern Ireland as tourists: apart form a perfunctory drive into Co. Fermanagh when I was at an INO (Nurses Union) Conference in Cavan - just to say I'd crossed the border - I'd never been into the North, and Jan had gone to Newry over twenty years ago to sell a car before we returned to Africa. It was a car we'd bought in Wales and it was easier to sell it in the North than to import it into Ireland and incur all that cost only to sell it on.

We drove up to Donegal in a day, took about six hours to get there via Dublin, which was a bit of an indirect route but the best roads. Motorway all the way to Dublin and Drogheda over the lovely new toll bridge over the Boyne (pictured in this post), then normal roads for the rest of the journey.

We stayed in Buncrana, a town on the Inishowen Peninsula which is the most northerly part of Ireland. We didn't make it to the extreme tip at Malin Head but we did get close to it when we went to Doagh Island. The first night we had dinner after checking in to our hotel, the Lake of Shadows, and dropped into the conference venue, the Inishowen Gateway Hotel, to meet some of the delegates. It was an early night for us both after the long drive. Next day Jan went off to the conference and I wandered around Buncrana for the morning - a lovely little town with some nice shops - including the oddest name
ever - Ubiquitous Restaurant!

Across the Border - the city that dare not speak its name

After lunch I went to Derry/Londonderry for a look around the historic walled city. Never has a city had such a controversial name - I still don't know what the official name is as the Catholics would use Derry and the Protestants/Loyalists use Londonderry. So as an uninformed Southerner I would probably be excused whichever name I used, as in mixed (religious) company you end up offending someone regardless. Not being terribly au fait with the current nuances of names, I just kept quiet and drove into the city - about 20 mins from Buncrana - and enjoyed the buzz that comes from being in a foreign country - as Derry is in the UK - and realising if I said that to a Nationalist Republican I would cause major offence as they claim ownership of the North as part of Ireland.

Well, the "North" is on the island of Ireland but as Six Counties of the North remained with the UK after Ireland's Independence in 1922 it has been a flashpoint ever since and 40 years ago the "Troubles" erupted with the loss of over 3,000 lives on both sides of the divide over the next three decades. There's peace now but as there are many unhappy with the Good Friday Agreement and the power-sharing that ensued it is a very tenuous truce - hopefully a lasting one, nonetheless. There's a powerful imagery in the sculpture at the roundabout to the city called Across the Divide - you can see the photo in this post. There's also a link to Lismore - the artist Antony Gormley has a sculpture at the Millenium Forum Theatre modelled on his own form as in the one in Lismore Castle Gardens.

The Walls of Derry were the scene of the famous Siege of Derry in 1688-89, and in more recent times there are many memorable infamous events, the worst being the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972 when 13 unarmed protesters were killed by the British troops. That inquiry has just recently ended with the British Prime Minister apologising to the relatives of the victims, which has brought some closure to one of the most divisive and bitter events of the Troubles. There's some tourism now around the Walls and even on the remnants of the Troubles in the Murals that give some colour to the housing estates - they are all highly political and have been retained as a marker of their significance to their communities. I managed to capture some on camera and they give an idea of the sentiments and sometimes persistent "Siege" mentality that persists to this day. This is evident in the dispute that's arisen over the British City of Culture 2013 that Derry's just been awarded - it led to a split in the City Council over the inclusion of the UK in the title.

It's fascinating contemporary and ancient history when you're in the thick of it and I certainly enjoyed my walk around the Walls, unguided apart from all the information points on the Bastions and the various Gates, and absorbing the atmosphere while wondering what tales these walls could tell of all they've witnessed since their birth.

I drove across the Craigavon Bridge - a double-decker bridge across the Foyle River and back over the Foyle Bridge and re-entered the Irish Republic/Ireland at a different border. The only indication that there's a border is in the speed limit signs - Ireland uses Km/hr and the North as the rest of the UK uses Miles/hr. The currency is the other clue that you're in a foreign land - the North is part of the Sterling Pound territory and £ signs abound, as the UK remains resolutely outside the Eurozone and I wrestled with some mental arithmetic to get my € rates converted to £stg. All I do know is that the North's prices are way cheaper than the Republic, even in the same shops - Lidl are said to be much better value in the North and as they are leading cost-cutters in the South that's saying something.

As we saw so much during this trip to the northern shores of the island, I will write a few different blog posts over the next few days, and hope you enjoy reading about what may be already familiar or totally new to you. It's fascinating stuff when you're in the thick of it and I certainly enjoyed my walk around the Walls, unguided apart from all the information points on the Bastions and the various Gates, and absorbing the atmosphere while wondering what tales these walls could tell of all they've witnessed since their birth.

I'll try to do a Picasa Web album for the sidebar!
The photos here include:

• Various views of and from the Walls,
• Cannon and plaques from the Walls,
• The Murals (the famous Free Derry one and a few Loyalist ones)
• The Boyne Bridge in Drogheda,
• The Ubiquitous Restaurant in Buncrana,
• The beautiful Guildhall in Derry,
• The Maurice Harron Sculpture "Hands Across the Divide"