Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

The Connswater greenway is a project which will, over the course of the next two or three years, link up pretty much all of the existing smattering of parks and walkways from the Titanic quarter through to the Castlereagh hills.

Although it’s an area that I’ve been in and around for most of my life their booklet highlights a whole bunch of things that I never knew existed. In fact, it comes across as a much more interesting area than you would expect, picking out as it does interests ranging from George Best’s home and Van Morrison’s home and haunts through to a 400 year old bridge in what it a fairly compact area.

That bridge is the most surprising for me as I went to school right beside it yet never knew of its existence until Wednesday morning! To be fair, it doesn’t look that impressive these days but then ancient footbridges rarely do and this one crosses the river at a point where the flow tends to collect a whole heap of junk ranging from fallen branches through to the Tesco trolley which seem to get everywhere these days.

Whilst the majority of the open spaces exist already, many of them have seen better days and the walkways have generally fallen into disuse over the years. Thus one of the major tasks of the project is to spruce up what’s already there which is no small task given the span of the greenway. This will include re-routing some of the stretches of river to both create a more typical meandering look and to sort out the flooding problem that arises along some sections of the rivers. In addition to all the prettying up the playgrounds scattered along the route will have their numbers increased somewhat and upgrades to those that are already there.

One of the most staggering figures that was quoted in the presentation on Wednesday was that over 50% of the population in the area is “economically inactive” ie there’s a very high level of unemployment. Whilst this project won’t directly change that, it should help to pretty up the area substantially which may in turn attract more businesses to move to what was once an area with close to 100% employment thanks to the shipyard, aircraft factory and all the supporting businesses which they drew in.

Friday was Culture Night in Belfast which means a very, very packed night of entertainment all over the city and all free too.

We took the opportunity to finish off some things that we didn’t manage to fit in to the Heritage Weekend earlier in the month. The easy way to include them turned out to be to go on one of the three Community Taster Tours. The listing for these was a little confusing in the booklet about the culture night but it turned out that there were three entirely different tours to choose from, each lasting three hours.

For our purposes the 4pm tour seemed best in that it included the Titanic pump house which we’d missed out on earlier and which normally has a very confusing car parking arrangement that seems best avoided. Surprisingly the tours weren’t anything like fully booked and we found ourselves on an open top bus that didn’t even have a dozen people on it.

Frankly the pump house was a major disappointment. Effectively it’s a small, very overpriced, cafe with one stand containing an assortment of Titanic gifts and a dozen or so panels about various aspects of the Titanic spaced around a very bare room. Next stop was the Engine Room Gallery which is nowhere near the Titanic area as you might expect but instead at Hollywood Arches.

From there we were off to what was supposed to be an Ulster Scots event at the Spectrum Centre on the Shankill Road. Unfortunately the organisation fell apart at that point so we only saw the Lambeg drummer and didn’t see the highland dancing, the flute band nor the lone piper.

Finally, it was on to the Indian Community Centre where they were rather optimistic about the amount that could be included in the short time available. Thus we missed out on the henna and sari demonstration, Hindi class information, Indian dance and musical performance and we just about managed to fit in the Indian tea, food and snacks.

Although three hours seemed like an awfully long time for a bus tour round Belfast when we read about it in the brochure, in practice the time just flew in and really it needed to be around twice as long to do justice to everything but then that’s only to be expected of a taster tour. In fact, it was almost perfect as a taster and has highlighted a couple of places that we will be revisiting at the next opportunity.

By the time we got back, it was almost the perfect time to go on the tour round the offices of the Belfast Telegraph. No smell of fire and brimstone as you sort-of expect from seeing newspaper back-offices in movies but rather a very automated newspaper production factory. Sadly we didn’t get to see the presses running as they don’t kick off ’til a couple of hours after the tours finish but a very interesting tour nonetheless and the hour just flew in.

Both the little guys were running on empty by this point so we finished off with a brief look round some of the activities going on before heading home.

These days most people wouldn’t even think about travellers cheques. After all, surely the pre-paid cash or debit cards are far more practical and they’re accepted everywhere too, aren’t they?

Whilst it’s true that they’re accepted in most places, cards aren’t accepted everywhere. Even in those places where they are usually accepted there are occasional technical problems that crop up, sometimes quite frequently in relatively isolated places where not having an alternative method of payment would cause significant complications for you. Don’t think that these are places that only intrepid explorers will reach because the technical problems can crop up quite often in country areas of the most civilised of countries. Usually, of course, they happen in the most difficult of places and awkward of times.

For most places, you don’t need to consider travellers cheques as a primary means of payment basically because they’re too expensive as they usually involve both costs in purchasing them and again when using them (check if you can use them like cash rather than needing to cash them in a bank branch). However, it’s worth buying around US$250 or so for those awkward times when you really do need them. For maximum flexibility, it’s best to buy Visa or Mastercard branded cheques issued by a non-American bank (Thomas Cook is the brand that seems best known worldwide). Don’t cash them when you get home as they’re valid indefinitely and repurchasing them for each holiday just increases the cost for you.

Keep a note of the cheque numbers, cancellation phone numbers, when you bought them and where you bought them as you’ll need this information if they’re stolen.

So, yes, despite all the promotion of prepaid cards these days, it is worth keeping a few travellers cheques.

The Ulster History Park was created back in 1990 by the local council but sadly never really attracted visitors in the numbers that are necessary to support such a park. Thus even when I went in it’s peak years in the mid 1990s there were very few people around which is as you’d expect for a place receiving around 30,000 visitors which at around 150 per day is a number that’s easily lost in a 35 acre park. The park was closed down for almost eight years and is starting the long process of reopening by way of school visits, special events, etc.

In the early days the emphasis was on the pre-history period ie around 8,000BC to the middle ages. The earlier aspects are still there but sadly the Neolithic houses of yesteryear are are poorly maintained. The stone age dwellings, tombs and stone circles are still there but the emphasis has very much shifted to the plantation era and the more easily maintained stone buildings. That’s very sad as it means that the distinction between the “archie park” and the more well-known Ulster Folk Museum and Ulster-American Folk Museum is much less clear-cut than it used to be.

In some ways the presentation of the older dwellings and tombs is probably more realistic than the very tidy and clean park that I saw in my last visit some 15 years or so ago. Certainly when these things were originally constructed by our ancient ancestors, they definitely didn’t have a well-maintained path leading up to them! What does need work are the various information signs associated with each of the buildings as some are barely readable.

These days most people start in the area of the plantation settlement which is where the historical re-enactment by the company of Northern Period Productions was put on today to introduce us to how people of the time of the plantation lived. Quite a good performance but events like this need to be more regular to attract the audience that the park needs and deserves. This area has around a dozen buildings spanning a plantation era settlement and monastery.

The visitor centre houses a nice presentation of the prehistoric settlement in Ireland along with a video describing events through the plantation era and a small cafe. It’s best to start here as both presentations place the buildings that you’ll see in their historic context and help to direct your tour; that’s particularly important for the prehistoric area of the park these days.

Getting there is just as hit and miss as it always was. Basically you go to Omagh, then take the B48 towards Gortin, staying on that road (which has lots of twists and turns) until you see the park on your left (it’s right on the road).

Worth going to see on the European Heritage weekend (it’s open on both days 11am-6pm) next year which, at present, the only time that the park is open to the public.

As always the Heritage Days weekend is a bit hectic so today the schedule included a family fun day, the Titanic tour and Springhill.

The tour basically takes a run along the harbour emphasising various spots that had a role in the history of the Titanic or of Belfast shipbuilding generally. It starts off in what was one of the oldest parts of Belfast harbour but which has since seen the most renovation work so, at the moment, is the most modern area in use although that’s going to change soon when building of the Titanic Quarter is completed.

As with the architectural tour we saw a number of places where we’ll be going back to for a more detailed look. The first major one of those is the harbour masters office, then it continues on past the various drawing offices where the Titanic was designed. Along the way you get to see the pillars which are the only visible part that remains of the giant slipway built for the Titanic. They’re constructing a gigantic Titanic exhibition at the end of that and there are some plans to restore at least part of the slipway. From there it’s on past some of the older parts of the docks before reaching the Titanic pump house where the Titanic’s dry dock remains completely dry after almost 100 years. That’s having a special opening later in the month when we hope to have a closer look.

The whole tour runs to around an hour and would be reasonable value at the normal £10 (£30 for families) price though obviously if you’re not in a rush it would be best to wait for the Heritage Weekend next year as it’s free then.