I’ve never had to make a statement or risk offence in what I called a place before. Some of you may want to boo me already. Please don’t.
Having spent a couple of days in Belfast, I was ready for more provincial provinces and also for some scenery.
I got both. Yes I went to the ruddy Giant’s Causeway, which is not mystical and remote, as pictures show. It s stuffed with people like gulls at feeding time, one per hexagonal block, and then a steady stream walking from the PAID carpark, with National Trust staff directing your paths, and trying to get you to pay £10 to Enter The Building – their visitor centre. Yes, to even look at the shop or use the cafe. And they’ve commandeered the nearby inn, too. Military overtones deliberate. I’m not sure what I feel about the Trust having places of nature and mystery.
But there wasn’t much here – not during daylight hours. I had a colleague whom I imagine strutting across from Ire to Scotland, casually creating the rock formation as she strode.
So onto Derry and some great scenery on the train, as you’re right by the coast and there’s hills in the background.
So I arrived in the said city in a good mood, which is by a wide river, the same name as a bookshop I like. This all put me I further good spirits.
Another big Tourist Information Centre – Northern Ireland knows how to do these properly (England, take note!). And then, the city walls – which I’m shocked to learn are not only shut at that vague hour of “dusk”, but have metal spikes atop. Not very in the spirit of peace and unity!
My plan was to do a neutral/both sides museum – the Tower House. I have never spent a couple of pounds so well. Then to the Catholic/Republican museum in Bogside – yes, the Free Derry area, about Bloody Sunday – which is unlike any museum I’ve ever visited. Then I’d do the Protestant/Unionist museum, called Siege Heroes, tellingly, with their own castellated hall inside the walls, much about marching and 1689. And then I would lunch with the Dove, local monastery builder Colmcille, AKA Columba. But although there was a great visitor centre (hear Nessie rebuked in Gaelic!), the Dove wasn’t cooking and seemingly neither was the other heritage centre in the gasworks.
In fact, finding food and drink, and activity generally – especially after about 4pm – was tough here. During the day, you’ve several museums and tours to see. You can also visit the Bluecoat school at the grand First Presbyterian chapel, see three lots of murals (the tour bus may help as they’re spread out). There’s three theatres, but all were dark when I was there, and only mainstream cinema. Sulk. Pubs looked a little… “local for local people”. And it was very very wet.
There’s only a few streets to central Derry, sadly dominated by a shopping centre. It reminds me of Great Yarmouth: a small walled town which was once an island at the mouth of a river, and something about the atmosphere – many museums, lots of history, but…
This is the place to come if you like history and want to understand…now again I have to make a political choice about what to call it…Northern Ireland, Ulster, Six Counties… I’ll settle for The Region. There’s also the grand Guildhall to visit which has a free exhibition room about the city’s history. I felt overwhelmed with reading panels and watching videos, but there is much to learn about how Derry got its controversial longer name. And much about managing conflict, violence, different opinions (and how not to), and also questioning what you’re told about events. It’s often a lesson to learn from rather than to emulate, but in its heritage centres at least, there seems to be harmony and a balance, and a working together.
As I left, I faced a final Northern Ireland conundrum: I was told that I may not sit on the platform (where I could at last enjoy some sunshine and a nice final view of the city) – for health and safety. And yet the same man had at commuter time scrubbed the station floor with smelly chemicals, left it soaking wet with a wet patch right by the doors…
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