Dunluce...yet again.

Legend has it that in 1639 part of the castle, including the kitchen, fell into the sea.  Seven kitchen staff were killed in this incident.  The sole survivor was in a corner of the kitchen which didn't collapse.

The castle was abandoned after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when the MacDonnells became impoverished as a result of backing the losing side in the Battle.

The property eventually passed into the hands of the Northern Ireland Government in 1928.
It is currently maintained by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and is open to the public.

Dunluce, Again

A closer view of the castle.

While it is believed that there has been a castle here since the 13th century, the first record is in 1513 when it belonged to the MacQuillans.
Parts of the current ruins would have been built at that time.

Following battles in the late 16th century, the MacQuillans lost control of the castle to the Scottish MacDonalds and their Irish counterparts, the MacDonnells.
In 1584, Sorley Boy MacDonnell took control of the castle.

On 26th October 1588, one of the surviving ships from the Spanish Armada, the Girona, was shipwrecked near Dunluce.
Sorley Boy recovered three cannon and two chests of treasure from the wreck.  The funds raised from the sale of the treasure were used to improve the castle.

The rest of the treasure from the Girona was recovered  during 1967 and 1968 by a team of Belgian divers.  This was the greatest amount of Spanish Armada treasure to be recovered from a wrecked ship.
The items found are now displayed in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Dunluce Castle

Part of the now-ruined, medieval, Dunluce Castle, a popular tourist attraction on the North Coast.

Ballintoy Harbour

This is a corner of Ballintoy Harbour, on the North Coast, a few miles from the Giant's Causeway.

During the last few months several isolated places along the North Coast have hosted the cast and crew from the American television series Game of Thrones.
This series, made by HBO, is mainly filmed in Northern Ireland.  Most filming takes place at the Paint Hall Studio in Belfast, with external locations around the country - one of which, in Season Two of the series, is Ballintoy Harbour.

Finn McCool. Or, perhaps, Fionn mac Cumhail?

When I first created this blog, I chose to acknowledge the mythical giant Finn McCool.
I live close to the North Coast of Northern Ireland.  Only a few miles from the Giant's Causeway, Finn's most famous creation.

There are various conflicting versions of Finn's legendary activities.  Until I started doing a little research on these activities, I didn't realise that he was also Fionn mac Cumhail.
Fionn was the leader of the Fianna Eireann, a group whose exploits form part of the Fenian cycle of Irish mythology.

The photo above was taken some years ago in Bushmills, which is a couple of miles inland from the Giant's Causeway.
The picture is on the gable wall of a house. It describes Finn as the 'Defender of Ulster' and has Loyalist paramilitary symbols at the top.

The people who put up the painting see Finn as an Ulster giant and, therefore, a Loyalist like them.
The fact that he pre-dates Protestantism - and probably Christianity as well - obviously escapes them.

They certainly aren't aware of any link with Fionn mac Cumhaill.  Not quite the loyalist Defender of Ulster the painter had in mind.

My research showed me that Finn McCool's Country isn't just the Causeway Coast, or even Northern Ireland, it's the island of Ireland.
But that's fine by me...I'm still going to use his name.

Starting Again...

Although this blog has been around for several years, it has rarely been used.

It began life as a personal blog, but stopped when I felt I had become too personal.  

It's been resurrected a couple of times and eventually finished almost two years ago, with a series of photos taken in Dublin on New Year's Eve 2009.

Now I'm going to take drastic action. 

I'm going to delete all the old posts - and make this a new beginning.

Grafton Street

Still Dublin, still Christmas!

This is the top end of Grafton Street, seen from the corner of St Stephen's Green. Grafton Street is the city centre's main shopping area.