We had a fairly restful day touring yesterday. The weather was mostly sunny, but it was extremely windy. We went southeast of Belfast, down and around the Ards Peninsula. Bound on the east by the North Channel and on the west by Strangford Lough, it is a fertile, relatively flat land. Suzie read somewhere that at some time in the past the residents were offered extra incentives to build towers and castles, and so part of our charge was to look for them. I also was hoping to see one of Ireland’s famed stone circles; I had located it on Google Earth, but unfortunately was never able to find it on the ground.
We first stopped at a large formal garden, whose name escapes me, but were put off by the large admission price, and so just ate our lunch outside. Our next stop was perhaps the most spectacular — the ruins of Grey Abbey. According to the official web site,
Affreca, daughter of the King of Man and wife of John de Courcy, Anglo-Norman invader of East Ulster, founded the abbey in 1193. The Abbey was colonised by Cistercian monks from Cumbria. The French background of the Cistercian Order and the English origins of Grey Abbey resulted in an elegant Gothic building with tall pointed lancet windows, the first truly Gothic structure in Ireland.
The ruins are spectacular, and are set on beautiful grounds. Coming off the small parking lot (we were the only ones there the entire time), you see this:
Access to the ruins are around (not through) the graveyard. There are various sets of ruins of various ages, the oldest, dating from the 1100s, being these:
A couple of other pictures give an idea of the scale and the grounds. There are a couple of more pictures on my Flickr site.
Very peaceful, beautiful, and quiet.
From Grey Abbey, we cut across the peninsula to the coast side. We stopped to let the boys walk on the beach in a small town called Ballywalter, while Suzie and I walked through the town. At the main intersection of the town was this:
We were originally perplexed as to the meaning of all of the flags and symbols. We asked a young girl in the ice cream shop the meaning of them, but she said she didn’t know. Research upon return suggests that this is a “Unionist” display, as evidenced by the Union Jack (which was flying up and down the main road) and the “Rem. 1690” sign, which refers to the Battle of the Boyne, which remains of significance today:
The Battle of the Boyne remains a controversial topic today, especially in Northern Ireland, where Protestants remember it as the great victory over Catholics that resulted in the sovereignty of Parliament and the Protestant monarchy.
In recent years, “The Twelfth” has often been marked by confrontations, as members of the Orange Order attempt to celebrate the date by marching past or through what they see as their traditional route. Some of these areas, however, now have a nationalist majority who object to marches passing through their areas. This change is mainly due to natural population migrations, whereby rural Irish Catholics have moved to major cities to be closer to potential employers.
Each side thus dresses up the disputes in terms of the other’s alleged attempts to repress them; Catholics still see Orange Order marches as provocative attempts to show who is boss, while Protestants insist that they have a right to “walk the Queen’s highway” and see any attempt to deny them the right to walk through traditional routes used for centuries as a move to marginalise them and restrict their freedom to celebrate their Protestant identity earned in the Glorious Revolution settlement. Since the start of The Troubles, the celebrations of the battle have been seen as playing a critical role in the awareness of those involved in the unionist/nationalist tensions in Northern Ireland.
It makes me wonder whose money was being spent to put up this display. Was it the town’s? And if so, how is it that public money can be spent on what is at least in part (if not in whole) an “in your face” taunt?
After Ballywalter, we drove south, heading toward Portaferry, where we would catch a ferry across to the mainland. We drove past several more castles, including one unknown, sitting next to a modern subdivision.
We stopped in Portferry for tea. As noted earlier, we have become fans of tea-time, especially the boys, who see it as an excuse to buy sweet snacks (this time it was a large piece of rich chocolate cake [Will] and a huge piece of apple pie [Andrew], both served, of course, with cream). A few pictures from the town and the ferry crossing:
After landing in Strangford, we headed back to Belfast, looking for the turnoff for the stone circles, but never finding it. En route, near Belfast, we stopped at an large, new shopping mall, which must have been the Upscale Yuppie Mall, given the shops and the clientele, although on one end it had a large Sainsbury’s (is that upscale?). We got provisions and headed back to Greenisland, where we ate dinner and watched the exciting Germany-Turkey Euro 2008 football match (we are becoming soccer fans, who’d a thunk it?).
My thanks to our home-exchange partner for having such a terrific vehicle for us to drive — an Audi A4 diesel, with a 6-speed manual transmission. It is roomy, peppy, and economical, and also quite stylish, and has served us extremely well during our travels.
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