Monthly Archives: June 2023

We’d had Escape Velocity straining up this mountain for quite some time now. But finally as we crested the summit, and just as Marce said, we found a long strip of a roadside parkup leaning on this side back down the mountain, and on the other side down the mountain the other way. However, balanced at the very top, were a few precious level spaces, occupied. As an RV driver I’ve learned that you can’t reconnoiter for long without offending the populace so I pulled into the first available space. Now we wait.

To pass the time I decided to climb the last bit of the mountain and to my amazement I found myself in Rio de Janeiro with Christ the Redeemer towering above us.

It was my own Twilight Zone moment. You can imagine my confusion. As I scrambled (age adjusted) up the path things started to come into focus. It’s definitely not the world famous 98 foot tall Art Deco Christ the Redeemer statue. We’re not in Rio de Janeiro, and this is not Sugarloaf Mountain. But what is it? Turns out it’s Manannan MacLir, regarded as the Irish Neptune.

It seems in Celtic times it was widespread practice to make votive offerings to deities like the Sea God of Lough Foyle. In 1896, two ploughmen stumbled across the accumulated precious offerings which became known as the Broighter Gold Hoard. To this day if the weather gets up on the Foyle sandbanks between Inishtrahull and Magilligan, the locals say, “Manannan is angry today,” while reaching for a trinket or two, at least something shiny.

My goodness, the views from this place are staggeringly beautiful and it’s easy to see why the massively eccentric Earl-Bishop always wanted to use this route to travel to his home at Downhill Demesne.

We found a path down the face of the summit that led to an observation deck and alternately a path to something called Hell Hole which I’m going to guess had nothing to do with the other Hell Hole in Russell, New Zealand. Further exploration revealed nothing more than a lumpy field chock-a-block with sheep poo. On the other hand, in New Zealand, Hell Hole was once filled with lonely sailors, and is one of the few places in New Zealand not chock-a-block with sheep poo.

Where was I? Oh yes, I think it’s time for photos.

Sweet dreams from high above Lough Foyle.

We didn’t mean for this blog to become a travelogue, nor do we intend to continue boring you with castle after castle. It’s just that castles are pretty much what there is around these parts and to be honest, Jack has a hard time passing up anything with more than two standing walls, let alone a tower.

Back at the Giant’s Causeway we ducked into a small gallery to admire the work of local artists and were intrigued by some photographs of the same subject, a pretty round building situated on a high cliff overlooking the ocean. We found the name, marked it on the map and promptly forgot about it.

After Dunluce Castle I was searching for a quiet parkup where we could hide out for a day or two and catch up on life chores when I found an unusual spot right behind a static caravan park but adjacent to a National Trust site. A static caravan park is what we’d call in America a trailer park, but more like a summer home condo community. The caravans are mostly all the same and they’re packed in like sardines. I don’t know if this is an economical way to have a vacation home but they’re very popular along this coast judging by the hundreds and hundreds of units in many different sites.

So this small car park lies just over the fence from the top end of a huge sloping static caravan site. Over the tops of the caravans we have an ocean view, and in the other direction is the entry to the National Trust land which just happens to be the location of the pretty round building we saw in the art photographs.

It might have been easier to just park in the official National Trust car park but you can’t stay overnight there so we set off overland to see the pretty round building. The trail from where we parked led us down into a ravine called the Black Glen and back up the other side, occasionally scrambling for footing on steep paths, picking our way toward where the map showed the pretty round building.

I was the trailblazer and I’m pretty sure I heard grumbling from behind but once we achieved the summit all was forgiven. Up high is where Jack likes to be. Up high with a castle is even better.

First we came upon a belvedere, then we followed the path along the cliff overlooking the beach until we found the pretty round building from the photographs.

It’s called the Mussenden Temple and it’s part of Downhill Demesne, the 18th century estate of Frederick, 4th Earl of Bristol and Lord Bishop of Derry, known for short, thank goodness, as the Earl-Bishop. The Temple was built as a library and it’s easy to imagine what a beautiful library it must have been inside although I’d have put in a few windows to take advantage of the sea view.

Further back from the cliff lie the remains of Downhill House, the whimsical over-the-top sometimes home of the Earl-Bishop, said to have been decorated with frescoes, statues and paintings by well-known contemporary artists.

There’s not much left of the place. It was built in the late 18th century, damaged by fire in 1851 but restored, and continuously occupied until the 1920s. During World War II it was used to billet RAF servicemen and women, then dismantled by 1950 because the cost of upkeep was too high.

I don’t really understand why you’d dismantle a huge mansion rather than sell it. Maybe the Earl-Bishop shouldn’t have saddled it with the name Downhill House.

We retraced our steps across the estate, past the belvedere, down into the Black Glen and back up the other side. We were dragging our feet by the time we got back to Escape Velocity. That’s enough for one day.

Dunluce Castle was established early in the 1500s by the MacQuillans as the center of power for their Gaelic lordship. In the mid 1550s the Scottish clan, our old friends the MacDonnells, ousted the MacQuillans; we can only guess how but bloodshed was probably involved. What followed was near constant conflict with the surrounding families in burgeoning Dunluce Town. Sorley Boy MacDonnell, in a tug of war with the English Crown and Ulster Gaelic Chieftains, lost Dunluce in a prolonged seige, gained it back, then lost it again to the even more notorious Cromwell. Let’s just call it an actual Game of Thrones.

Our task this morning is called the Game of Parking, or GoP. It was a tragic lack of imagination that Sorley Boy MacDonnell didn’t plan for the crush of buses and automobiles that would need a little real estate to visit his old family home. Buses take up 50% of the paltry few parking slots so the hot tip is to go early. We went early. What a joke.

Marce suggested passing the parking strip and coming in from behind. That’s something Sorley Boy would try. As we pulled in, a small van was pulling out and I snuck right in behind him. A frustrated bus driver came over with his finger wagging and wanted to kick us out but another driver said no, no, just pull in close to the stone wall, which was exactly what I’d planned to do. We were squeezed into the impossible-to-find parking place. I thanked my new best friend and smiled at Mr. Grumpy. We are the Notorious Escape Velocity!

Dunluce Castle is beautifully situated on top of a basalt promontory jutting out into the Irish Sea.

After an obligatory trip through the gift shop, you stroll down through an expansive walled-in domestic section with stables, brewhouse and guest lodgings.

Suddenly far off in the distance you see the bridge to the gatehouse and its majestic twin towers. It’s really an awesome sight.

There’s an elegant masonry arched bridge in place of the original drawbridge.

The gatehouse has Scottish style corbeled corner turrets that are quite familiar to us.

A reinforced curtain wall has two openings that face the mainland with cannon rescued from the Spanish Armada vessel La Girona which sank near here.

Opposite is an unusually elegant feature called a loggia, a row of columns holding up a roof to cover a walkway. Definitely a southern Europe influence .

The remains of a fine Jacobean mansion, built by Randal MacDonnell by 1620 was the main residence.

We took to the stairs to see an underground cave which in calm water was the only handy landing from the sea.

There comes a time in every adventure when you’ve got to go home. We found our home mired in a sea of vendors of sausage baps, fish & chips, and Mr. Whippy soft serve. In other words, a real circus. We eased EV into line and crept forward behind exiting buses loaded with funseekers.