Northern Ireland

Over a decade ago, my wife and daughter and I got to spend about a week in the republic of Ireland. Arriving in Dublin, we rented a car and drove through the gorgeous green countryside. Our tour took us to the Dingle peninsula in the south-western part of the country, the Cliffs of Moher, Tralee, Galway, other towns and cities, and then back to Dublin, spending our last night there in a dorm room at the city’s venerable Trinity College.

The people we met throughout our journey were invariably friendly, animated conversationalists, humorous and helpful. Many, in response to our inquiries, suggested we absolutely had to go to Northern Ireland – to Ulster. A lack of time and some apprehension on our part prevented that from happening. “The Troubles” – the ongoing violence involving the Catholic Irish Republican Army, Protestant militia groups, and the British military, continued to dominate our outsider’s view of the North. (As an aside, don’t you just love the use to which we can put euphemisms? The phrase “The Troubles” reminds me, indirectly, of an acutely painful medical situation I encountered a few years ago. In checking with my doctor to find out what was going on, he responded, somewhat less than helpfully, that I had “irritable symptoms.” Wow! Thanks a lot for that medical insight!)

But, back to Northern Ireland. With a power-sharing arrangement now in place brokered by, among others, former Senator George Mitchell, the Irish Republic’s leader Bertie Ahern, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the region is a much different place than it was in the past. And this time, thanks to Ryan Airlines, I wasn’t going to be denied. Ryan Air, as you may know, is an Irish-based discount carrier that flies throughout Europe, sometimes at ridiculously low fares. I was able to fly from Glasgow to Belfast and back for the grand total of 10£ -- about 20 dollars! How they can make money with those rates is beyond my comprehension. Driving a rented car from Belfast, I headed northwest along the Causeway Coastal route to my destination, a little town called Portballintrae. The 60-mile drive twisted and turned along the coast – a truly spectacular setting. The road wound around bright-green cliffs that hung precariously over the crashing Atlantic. The only nervousness I felt occurred when trucks and buses, large, unconcerned, and speeding, came barrelling by me as I squeezed my tiny car against the rock wall bordering the road.

The day after getting to Portballintrae, I drove to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh. For a history buff, the park was just great fun. I spent about four hours there, in both the museum and outside exhibits. The Park was really interesting, with exhibits tracing the emigrant experience from Ulster to the New World. It reminded me of a miniature Williamsburg. My visit reinforced the importance of the role played by the Scotch-Irish in American history. For example, the parents of Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, two of the dominant figures of early 19th century America, were from Ulster. In fact, Jackson’s parents lived in a cottage near Carrickfergus (a few miles from Belfast), before moving in 1765 to the South Carolina up-country where the future seventh president was born two years later.

The boyhood home of John Joseph Hughes, the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, is located in the Folk Park, as is the birthplace of Thomas Mellon, who at the age of five, emigrated with his parents to western Pennsylvania. Mellon went on to found what is now one of the largest banks in the United States; his children and grandchildren became Cabinet secretaries, Ambassadors, corporate executives and philanthropists (as in Carnegie-Mellon University).

My Northern Ireland adventure left me excited -- no troubles and no irritable symptoms. I was extremely pleased to have made it there, and I was pleased as well that its warm, delightful people are finally at peace. After devastation and famine in the 19th century, followed by violence and bloodshed in the 20th, they deserve it.