Photo by Jurjen Drenth
Belfast's University area and the booming Cathedral Quarter both show the city's energy, while the City Hall, opened in 1906, is a solid testimony to the ambition of the city fathers in other times.
In the City Hall grounds is a monument to Edward Harland who with his partner Gustav Wolff built the great shipyards where RMS Titanic was launched.
“There never was a more unlikely place to build a shipyard,” says historian Ken McElroy. “We had very little raw material – the steel had to be imported from Scotland – but we had a great Presbyterian spirit. It was a very radical place and the Presbyterians were also into education – we have one of the oldest libraries in Ireland. Presbyterians always had this work ethic.
“Dunlop invented the rubber tire here, Ferguson invented the tractor, the ejector seat by Martin, the world's first vertical take-off aircraft, the mobile defibrillator and many more. For a tiny provincial city, those are amazing inventions.
“That spirit has always flowed through the veins of Belfast. Many would say that spirit started in Edinburgh, with people like Adam Smith, passes through here and then pushes off to America.”
Hello Northern Ireland, bouncing back from “The Troubles” that scarred its cities and both sides of its divided community for 30 years. Now its beautiful landscape is becoming better known as a film location in Game of Thrones while its capital of Belfast is embracing the Titanic, once a symbol of failure, as a story of the city’s energy and skills.
In Northern Ireland, I drive around the coast road to the pretty harbor of Ballintoy and beyond, passing the Giant’s Causeway and dramatic Dunluce Castle, clinging precariously to a cliff edge.
The most beautiful part of Northern Ireland is, without question, the coastline: tiny old cottages, ruins of even older castles, narrow winding roads, stone walls and the many shades of green in the countryside resulting from the plentiful rain.
It is a rainy day but I huddle on the foredeck with the other visitors onboard MV Mona to cruise past the docks where Titanic was launched and where the SS Nomadic, the last remaining White Star Line ship, still lies.
From Torr Head, on the coast of Northern Ireland, I can see the lighthouse on Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre, only 17 km away.
An outing on the ferry to Rathlin Island, the northernmost point of Northern Ireland, gives me an idea of just how rough its waters can be.
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