Dundonald Touring Caravan Park, Castlereigh, County Down, Ulster

                     

It was after midday when we pulled out of our camp at Larne yesterday, the latest time ever for us. We had spent the morning in a most relaxing manner, apart from packing up for relocation and stocking up again at Asda, reading; a rare treat. 

Our short trip, just twenty nine kilometres, was into the wind which will have thrown the rate of our fuel efficiency; I am sure The Chauffeur will let me know when he next crunches the numbers in his fuel consumption notebook. Actually the trip was a little longer than initially calculated because there was disagreement between our Tomtom and the directions emailed through to us by the caravan park admin. We actually passed the entrance, but from the wrong direction, thus not noticing the sign, and ended up having to reverse about in a small residential street. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon planning our few days in Belfast and booking the attractions that prefer this method of entry. So by the time the sun went down, rarely visible in these days of rain clouds, we were geared up for an early exit this morning. 

Storm Ali had arrived overnight bringing heavy rain and the first of the strong winds. Later we learned these had peaked at 90 mph in some parts of the island of Ireland, blowing a caravan over a cliff killing a sleeping tourist. But this morning as we headed out, the winds had not reached gale force although Chris did pass a cursory eye over the trees lining the camp immediately behind our van.

I am sure if we could actually climb to the top of one of the aforementioned trees, we would be able to see Stormont, home of the Northern Ireland Parliament. We have often seen the parliament frontage here on the television, a fine white structure standing at the end of a long straight drive. The reality was even more impressive, and I did try to snap a photo as we headed up the road to capture the spectacle. Alas my camera was dead, dead as a dodo. Chris reminded me I had my iPhone so all was not lost especially as it was to be a day with fewer photo opportunities.

It was windy up in the car park and we wrapped up well before making our way through the security gates where we were screened much as one is at airports, then on up the pathway to the entrance of the Grand Hall where we were handed our visitor lanyards; all standard procedure for a visit to Parliament. However this parliament is not functioning and there are only a few civil servants and a number of security guards to greet the tourists who visit as we were or hop off the hop-on-hop-off bus.

We were early and poked about the Hall studying the exhibition on the Irish suffragettes and a few treasures on exhibit in a small upstairs room. At 11 am we joined about ten others for an excellent tour of Stormont, although the area covered was very small; the Great Hall and the Assembly Room, originally built as the House of Representatives. 

The Parliament Buildings are situated in the extensive and lovely grounds of Stormont Estate which was already home to Stormont Castle, a building which still stands to one side and a little out of clear public view. They were designed by architect Sir Arnold Thornley and opened in 1932 after several modifications. The original plan was to build three separate buildings, but in the end everyone had to be satisfied with just the one. Everything is very symmetrical, even down to the floor of the Great Hall being matched with the shapes on the ceiling. The building is 365 feet wide representing one foot for every day of the year, and has six floors and six pillars at the entrance, one for each county in Northern Ireland.

Partition had occurred in 1921, so the parliamentary members spent the first eleven years of the new government’s existence meeting down in alternative buildings in the city. And then everyone worked away happily until the Troubles began in the late 1960s and by 1972, Westminster prorogued the Northern Irish parliament, the use of the word “prorogued” to differentiate the action from a voluntary handing over. This state of affairs lasted until 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was made, but instead of the old system being reinstated, the upper house was no longer and the old House of Representatives was replaced with the Assembly.

But for now, this is in a state of suspension and has been for nearly two years because the two main parties, of equal numbers (this only because the party with the greater representation lost one to the position of Speaker) cannot agree on several vital issues, some on matters very recent and some on matters that have been eating away for twenty years and need to be addressed. The timing of a return to normality is anyone’s guess, more likely to be months away rather than weeks, perhaps even decades. In the meantime the civil servants carry on with the status quo, often frustrated that new laws cannot be passed to deal with new problems that arise.

The building has had its own woes, the greatest of these, a fire in 1995 when the lower house was severely damaged along with rooms directly above and the adjacent Great Hall. It was three years later when restoration was complete, the year of the Good Friday Agreement. Some say that it was this restored parliament now lying in waiting that triggered a renewed desire to take back power from Westminster.

Another building story worth recording here is the story of its camouflage during the Second World War. The Senate chamber was used as an RAF operations room, a vitally important role, which required an element of security. Given that this great white building, the exterior of Portland stone from the south of England, was clearly visible from the air, and even worse, the roads up to it formed a great arrow inviting target practice, it needed to be camouflaged. Some bright spark decided it needed to be painted with removable paint: tar and cow dung. But the removal after the war was highly problematic; it took seven years of intensive labour by about thirty men to remove and then they were not wholly successful. The exterior of the building is now of varying shades of white and off-white; the sun on the south side cured the muck well, eating itself into the stone.

Of course there was much more to learn about Stormont and we enjoyed our time with Sarah very much; she is an excellent guide and a fount of knowledge, managing to remain diplomatically  neutral when it came to political questions where any of us might have loved to hear her take on the shenanigans of Stormont.

By the time we emerged from the parliament buildings, the winds had strengthened and gusts were so great we had to stop on our way back to the car park and stand holding on to bollards until the worst had passed. It was lunchtime so we decided to stay where we were and dine en voiture. When I opened the back door to make our coffee, great piles of early autumn leaves rushed in. “Shut the door!” Chris yelled. I did so and stood outside glaring at him shrugging my shoulders. When I asked whether he wanted his coffee or not, he agreed we would have to suffer leaf matter in our cups, and leaf matter throughout the vehicle. Despite this sounding like a domestic fracas, this was actually quite comic.

After this little drama, we headed into the city to visit the Ulster Museum situated near the Botanic Gardens. I foolishly thought we might find a car park however this is only just on the edge of the centre of Belfast, in the midst of Queen’s University, and there was no parking to be found. We drove around and around for ten minutes or more, and I was all for us heading home when we suddenly came upon a space. We fed the greedy parking meter which would not take our twenty pence coins, something we later decided had to do with a maximum time allowed rather than the lack of appetite for our coins. Even on our way into the city we had seen trees down, uprooted, broken off and foliage everywhere but on the trees. Here around the university thoroughfares were closed off to pedestrians, the botanic gardens were closed and the pavements were buried in leaves. It took us more than fifteen minutes to reach the museum so our time there was limited, having to allow the same for the return.

The city’s art collection is on the museum’s top floor and while not extensive, has some wonderful pieces. We probably spent too long on this floor because we left too little time to explore the modern history section on the first floor, something we were particularly interested in. As we made our way back to the car, we both agreed it was an excellent museum and warranted far more attention than we had given it.

Our trip home was slow, the congestion added to by the closed roads. The wind had dropped a little but the damage was evident everywhere, not least in the caravan park as we entered through the high security gates. The grounds were a carpet of leaves and small branches; Chris was anxious that we would find no tree crashed through the caravan roof. It was a fear I was pushing back, too awful to contemplate. As we pulled in beside the caravan we saw the tree broken off behind the van. Amazingly the tree had fallen a short distance from the caravan, with no damage sustained. How lucky we were!

Later after dinner when I pulled out the computer and downloaded my emails, there was an email sent just before 1 pm from the camp administration to request that we move our caravan to the other side of the camp as there was a danger of falling trees due to the weather conditions. Too late my friend! Should go buy a lotto ticket!