Northern Ireland

I have always been interested in Northern Ireland. Growing up I over heard on the news in the evenings about the violence between the Catholics and the Protestants in places like Belfast and I have always been curious about the potato famine. In addition, my ancestors came from this area, after immigrating from Scotland to Ireland. So when I map quested the area and realized that going from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then looping down into Ireland and back over to England was doable, I started to make plans. Our first stop was in Belfast to see the Titanic Museum. It had opened just a few weeks prior to our visit, so we were some of the first so visit this impressive site. It is located in the shipyards where the Titanic was built and then ceremoniously sent off for its fatal voyage. The kids especially loved the ride that took us through a replica of the ship yards, the models of the rooms for the different classes and the multi media presentation about the discovery of the Titanic. 

 Our next stop was Omagh to visit the Irish American Folk Museum. It was a living museum of replicas of homes from which Irish families emigrated to America. We learned about the potato famine, the Irish lifestyle of the 1800's and how and why these people came to America. In the museum, we toured Irish homes and then entered a town similar to one in which the Irish would buy their tickets and other supplies to come to America, we walked through a ship and then out into a replica of a New England village. The Museum was very well presented.

 The Irish relied on bogs, like the one above, to use as fuel for fires.

This was a great introduction to our time in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Scotland, a Whirlwind View

In Scotland, we stayed in East Calder, a little town with my family name, from which my ancestors must have come. Steve and I both have roots near Edinburgh, so this spot was much awaited for. We spent a day in Edinburgh and all agreed that we loved the town more than we had anticipated. The architecture and feel of the medieval old town area was different than anything that we had seen in Europe and it intrigued us. We began our day at Edinburgh Castle which sits atop the hill over looking the city and the North Sea. We wandered through the fortresses garrison, its chapels, war memorial and past Scotland's crown jewels. In it's great hall, a medieval performer demonstrated musical instruments from the region and weapons were on display. William Wallace's statue prominently overlooked the entrance and his impersonator welcomed us to the hilltop, reminding us of Scotland's respect for their greatest patriotic hero who is the symbol for this country's struggle for freedom. (Of course, England still considers him an outlaw, murderer and a traitor.)

After our tour of the castle, we stopped in little shops lining the Royal Mile, trying on tartans and looking for both the McFarlane and Calder plaids, picking up Scottish shortbread cookies, being entertained by street performers and eventually buying two kilts for Annie and Sophia, a plaid winter hat with ear flaps and lined with fur for Jonathan and a darling red plaid purse for Emilie.

Our last stop in the city was the National Museum of Scotland. Inside we found all sorts of objects symbolic of which the Scots are most proud. Dolly the sheep was in the science section, beautiful artwork, statues and antiquities were on the first floor and a natural history section, with sea creatures hanging from the ceiling, could be found on the top floor. We climbed to the observation deck on the roof of the building to take in views of Edinburgh, the North Sea and the surrounding area.

On our way back to our car, we passed the statue of Greyfriars, the little Scottish dog that earned his fame by loyally sitting on his masters grave for fourteen years after the man died. Prior to visiting Europe I bought several DVDs that were set in Europe or that were based on historical time periods or events in Europe. One Disney movie that the kids watched was Grefriars, about the very dog in the statue. While they all agreed, and protested, that the movie was the worst that they had ever seen (I guess a dog that sits in one spot for almost a decade and a half would be a hard sell for children), they were interested to see the statue right on the sidewalk in Edinburgh. We said our farewells to this fun town and returned to our hotel in East Calder.

We began our next day dashing up to Sterling Castle, which is about 45 minutes north of Edinburgh. Ever since I learned that Steve's great-great-great grandpa was the coachman for the castle and is buried in the church cemetery, I felt that we had a mission to find this ancestor of my children. We had to catch a 3 pm ferry to Northern Ireland, which was three hours from Edinburgh, on the opposite coast, so our time was limited. After packing and eating breakfast, we raced up to Sterling, not sure if our efforts would be in vain, since we were not certain where the gravestone lay. We pulled up to the castle and Emilie jumped out to take a few photos while we had all the kids take a look at the castle from the car windows and I again mentally marked this as a spot in which we would have to return. I knew that this wasn't the best way to see the area and I felt a little guilty about it, but we couldn't miss finding a family gravestone when we were so close so we just had to make it to Sterling. We lept out of the car at the church and I told the kids that we had ten minutes to find the stone. We all divided up and searched the burial ground. There, tucked on the east side of the church was the McFarlane Grave. There were no other McFarlane graves stones that we could see and the list of his children included John, who I knew Steve's family came from, so I assumed that we had found the right spot. We took photos and then jumped back in the car, talking about what it must have been like being the coachman for the castle more than one hundred years ago as we raced across Scotland and down the coast of the North Channel that separates Scotland from Northern Ireland.








The day turned out to be gorgeous, with temperatures reaching 70, a record for our European adventure, and beautiful scenery of rolling green hills dotted with fluffy sheep, a turquoise sea and islands drifting not far off the coast. We wished that we could have stopped for photos, exploring and playtime, but we knew that we had to make our ferry.

We left Scotland with a bit of sadness, knowing that we hadn't spent enough time in the area, but we looked forward to reaching Northern Ireland and our next adventure.