Writing and Wayfaring: Memories of Northern Ireland, Part 1

In my last post I wrote about a book by Rick Steves that touched a little on the connection between travel and fear. Many people don’t travel at all because they are too afraid. Many other people do travel, but only to certain places, only to places deemed “safe.” For some people, “safe” means western Europe only, for some it means exclusive holiday resorts only, and for some it means anywhere their passport is accepted. Whatever a person’s definition though, safety is certainly an important factor in choosing a travel destination, perhaps the most important factor. Because when it comes to travel, adventure is one thing, danger is another.

The Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland. Taken by my friend Declan.

Yet fear has a way of getting the better of many would-be travelers. Fear can demonize places that are merely different rather than truly dangerous, and can drown out the rich and delightful stories of well-seasoned travelers and even citizens of so-called off-limits places in favor of sensationalistic headlines and travel alerts. On a personal level, if I listened to fear and paid attention to nothing but headlines, I would have missed out on seeing some of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen and making some of the best friends I’ve ever had. If I listened to fear and headlines, I would have never gone to Northern Ireland.

Declan, Lisa, Anne, and Stephen--friends

Anne and Lisa

I spent one summer, in 1996, working in Northern Ireland, at a newly built conference center and café in a small town called Castlewellan in County Down. Castlewellan is a quiet, tidy town of about 2,000 with the sea just a couple miles up the road, the glorious Mourne Mountains for its front yard, and a lake and forest park for its backyard. It’s about 30 miles from Belfast, a pretty city on the sea backed up against a great hill called Black Mountain. Yes, you read that correctly: Belfast, a pretty city. Pretty enough that the first time I approached it in a car, I couldn’t believe this lovely-looking town in the distance was the same infamous, terrorist-ridden city I’d heard about in all the horrific newspaper headlines. Up close it was nicer than I expected too, cleaner and neater than dear, dirty old Dublin in the South. Though in classic Irish self-deprecatory style, the driver of the car I was in insisted that it only looked clean because it had just finished raining.

Castlewellan's front yard: The Mournes

Castlewellan's backyard: Lake at the Forest Park

Irish modesty aside, Northern Ireland is truly a stunning place. And it’s where I’ve met the most generous, warmest people I’ve ever known. But back home in America, almost anytime I’ve tried to talk about the beauty of the North to Americans and the friendliness of the people there, I get cut short or ignored. They don’t want to hear about that stuff. They only want to hear about the violence.

In a way I can’t blame them. To talk or write about the North without addressing the struggles in that part of Ireland would be to tell a lie. Indeed, the summer I spent in the North, 1996, was one that did see an outbreak in sectarian violence after a ceasefire had been declared in 1994. And that same day I arrived in Belfast and saw what a nice city center it has, I saw the sadder, troubling side to life in Belfast City later that night.

I went to the North with a job arranged and with another Chicago girl named Barbara (who had some deep Irish roots, her parents being from Connemara) who was to be my co-worker and roommate for the summer. Barbara and I were picked up at the Ulsterbus station in the border town of Newry by a representative of our employer, whose wife and family hosted us our first night in the North at their home outside Belfast. That night our host’s son, Owen, just a few years younger than Barbara and I, invited us out clubbing in Belfast. We went to a huge dance place called the Manhattan--which Google tells me is shockingly still around and now better known as the MClub. Owen met up with some of his friends there, and we all stayed until closing time in the city center. When we left the club and stepped out on the street to look for a cab, Barbara and I were pretty stunned--and nervous--to see British army tanks lining the street. They weren’t there by coincidence, but to keep the peace in case anyone felt like fighting or starting trouble with all the pubs and clubs letting out. That is not a sight young people back in Chicago have to get used to whenever heading out for a night on the town.

Half hour away from Belfast...

“Down the road” in tiny, quiet Castlewellan, such sights were rare fortunately. Barbara and I shared a small flat in a spanking new conference center and café called Hillyard House, just off the town square. We spent the summer taking turns cooking and waitressing in the café and cleaning the center’s rooms. We made fast friends with our co-workers--a small crew of locals who looked out for us like we were long-lost family. Northerners are like that--generous, friendly, and unjaded by tourists and visitors to their part of the country, perhaps because unlike the Irish in the Republic, they see so much less of visitors. Tourists are told to stay out of the North, or to “be careful” if they do dare cross the border--never mind that most of these tourists come from places in the U.S., Canada, Britain, or the Continent with infinitely much higher crime rates and random violence. Since tourists are less common around the North, their presence is rarely taken for granted and they enjoy a warm welcome by locals who want visitors to know they are hardly all gun-toting terrorists or supportive of such activity.

Hillyard House in Castlewellan, County Down

Parade in town square in Castlewellan

Country roads, take me home...

Despite the sight of those army tanks outside the nightclubs of Belfast, and the watchtowers and British soldiers with rifles leaning against walls around town on the border in Newry, our summer in Castlewellan was not spent listening to bombs drop and buildings explode or dodging rubber bullets and choking on tear gas. Our summer was spent enjoying time among local people who spend their summers and their lives the way people the world over do.

Carol was only 17 when she worked at Hillyard. Now she's a mother of 3 in England--and hasn't aged a bit.

Declan the caretaker fixing up bunk beds for me and Barbara

This is what it was like.

Barbara and I learned how to make some of the most delicious things from Bernie, the chef at Hillyard--a local dessert called banoffi (bananas and toffee) pie, leek and potato soup, lamb stew, chicken curry with apples and raisins, sponge cake with fresh cream. We certainly both gained weight our summer in the North, no doubt due to the gigantic portions they give you there, true to the stereotype of generous Irish hospitality. The notorious Ulster fry was probably the biggest culprit--a breakfast feast like no other consisting of fried eggs, fried rashers (thick-cut bacon), sausages, toast, brown bread, black and white pudding, potato bread, homemade jam, butter, whole milk, thick cream, hot tea, a new pair of jeans to replace the split ones, and a wheelchair to roll yourself away from the table after gorging on all this morning goodness.

Should be enough to get you started...save room for tea & scones!

An Ulster fry is fit for an Ulster king! (Castle in Castlewellan Forest Park)

After the Ulster fry, chips probably did the most damage. Do these people love their chips (we call ‘em fries in the States). There were 3 chicken and chips shops in Castlewellan. Barbara and I tried them all and settled on Zebedee’s as the best, even if it was also the farthest for us to walk to--something important to consider on those hazy days after late night sessions at Maginn’s, the pub around the corner from Hillyard. Late at night, there was also a Chinese takeaway, where you could get egg rolls with rice (or chips), cashew chicken with rice (or chips), sweet and sour chicken with rice (or chips), or even just chips!

One night's damage. Don't ask about the package of pantyhose. What happens in Northern Ireland stays in Northen Ireland.

Back in Hillyard House, we took a long, leisurely tea break with fresh scones every mid-morning--we, the whole staff, all together, not one employee at a time like in the States. And let me tell you, these teas were mandatory. Once I tried to opt out of sitting down with the others for tea because I had too much to do in the kitchen and was running behind. Twice the others knocked on the window of the kitchen door for me to come out already. Finally the manager stepped in and ordered me out to my tea and scones. The Irish sure are serious about their “cuppas.”