“You must see the Giant’s Causeway”

I guess that every house in Northern Ireland and every visitor to NI has a photo of them at the causeway. There’s ours, about 1980: me mam & dad; and two brothers. They both had those Peter Storm nylon-y sweat-y anorak things, in their uni days. The BBC are filming at Queen’s; my brother appears in the background of the TV program, wearing his anorak; later my Dad gives him a fiver to go and buy a new coat.

Left: Me man & dad, about 1980 The brother on the left got the fiver to replace his Peter Storm jacket.
Top, right: The delightful, astonishing causeway stones
Bottom right: view to the Skerries off Portrush (All photos: courtesy Me)

In the 1880s Portrush is pretty lowly. Great for walking and bathing I’m sure, but maybe not many other attractions. As the trains develop, the Giant’s Causeway gets a star billing for excursions to the coast. “Portrush to a large degree owes its fame from the nearness to the Causeway, and most visitors get there with the thrill of being on the oldest hydro- electric railway in the world.” In its first 7 months the tram carried 47,000 people, nearly all locals, benefitting from the train and tram prices.

I imagine the causeway in those 1800s years was pretty inaccessible, an end-of-the-world sort of place – a dirt road for the main road, and a dirtier dirt track down to the causeway, to a few fishing shacks.

The 1800’s, early 1900’s
Left/ Causeway engraving, French, 1827 (Ref. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection),
Right/ Rosemary Purdy, my old primary school buddy, on the pony and trap with her grandad, Alec, taking people to see the causeway as forerunner to Dalriada Kingdom tours

W M Thackeray, in his Irish Sketch Book, 1842, writes about the Causeway:

“It looks like the beginning of the world, somehow: the sea looks older than in other places, the hills and rocks strange, and formed differently from other rocks and hills—as those vast dubious monsters were formed who possessed the earth before man…When the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this must have been the bit over—a remnant of chaos!”

Going back further, Hervey, the Earl Bishop, in the late 1700s, was a keen vulcan, and built his Downhill estate so that he could go and study the rocks on the coast more easily. (His work earned him a jolly good Fellow of the Royal Society.) His italian buddy did sketches and Hervey circulated the engravings to his learned European contacts, as the first marketing of the causeway – he put the Giant’s Causeway on the map.

There is so much written about the Causeway that I can’t gush any more:

“The wide world has heard of the Giant’s Causeway…”
“Ireland might well have been built for nothing else but to present the Giant’s Causeway. It lifts us to the sublimities. It will be the last pillar of earth to crumble.”
“You must see the Giant’s Causeway …there is nothing in the world like it.”
“To go to Portrush without seeing the Causeway is like going to Egypt without seeing the Sphinx!”

The 1930’s.
Left/ Advert, Kane’s hotel at the Causeway (Northern Whig & Post, June 1938)
Centre/ NI Tourist guide, 1930s, “Ulster for your holidays“
Right/ Afternoon trains from Belfast to Portrush and tram on through to the Causeway – but this is 1938, and next to the Causeway advert is news of aerial bombardment and blitzkreig in the spanish civil war, and of the league of nations trying to hold it together but it is prep for war

For something unusual, I love the orange 1930s tourist leaflet, ‘Ulster for your holidays’, with information about the good old days when it could say,

“The Tourist Association would like to draw the attention of the traveller, moreover, to the fact that Northern Ireland or Ulster, as it is generally known, is part of Great Britain, and consequently there are no restrictions regarding Customs while travelling in the North of Ireland.
….Intending visitors are advised that they can book from almost every large station in England, Scotland and Wales to every large town in the North of Ireland.“

About the Causeway, it enthuses:

“A visit to the magnificent caves of Runkerry and Portcoon, by boat, ought not to be omitted from the programme: but visitors should not take this trip without experienced boatmen.
“The Authorised Charges Payable to Guides.
Short: Causeway, organ, amphitheatre: 3/-
Long Course: above and land cave: 4/-
“Visitors are particularly requested not to pay fees to any but authorised Guides wearing badges, and to report to Mr. C.R.C. Leech, Secretary, any cases of incivility or attempts to overcharge.
“Visitors to make their own terms for hire of boats.”

But Rosemary Purdy, her in the pony and trap photo above, tells me that the boat tours faded out in the 60s.

The 1960’s
Left/ The number of visitors to the causeway fell from 1890s heyday of 100,000, to 33,000, and the Causeway tram stopped in 1949. There is great affection and living memories of the little shops at the Giant’s Causeway, but the causeway is so unique, the facilities for visitors a bit lowly, and ready for a revamp
Centre/ “NI Premier Captain Terence O’Neill formally opened the Giant’s Causeway and a ten mile cliff path as a national park. Lord Antrim was also in attendance.” RTÉ 24 June 1963
Right/ 1969 – the last visit by our English & Scottish relatives before the Troubles; we don’t see them for the next 25 years

Our Scotland and England relatives come to visit every year and we often do the causeway coast trip. Our house is full of relatives – Linlithgow, Liverpool, Wolverhampton, London – as a kid I’ve to sleep on the sofa downstairs.

In the morning I go to my own bedroom to get a change of clothes. I walk in on my brother & wife in an intimate position.
Their next visit, they ask Dad if there is a key for the bedroom door lock.

The 1980’s
Left photos: the Causeway visitor centre, 1986, under council management
Top right: Handsome! Me, more hair, bit funny glasses, 1982 (photo: Lesley wants the credit that she took it, but she did cut off my feet)
Bottom right: Magnus unveiling of UNESCO status at the visitor centre, 1986

But as the Troubles begin, the mainland visitors hesitate about visiting N.Ireland, only returning after the peace process in the 90’s.

The 2000’s
Left/ just as things were doing great in the peace dividend, year 2000 and the council’s Causeway visitor centre burns down. The Noughties decade is spent negotiating who will take it forward
Centre/ Big visitor centre, construction 2011
Right/ Icons! olympic flame, on the Giant’s Causeway – 2012

To me, the Causeway is the bell-weather, the fortune-teller, of NI tourism and its prosperity. This chart is Causeway visitor numbers – but it could just as well be NI visitor numbers, or the state of the NI economy and development, or the state of the peace process:

100,000 visitors in the 1890s, reducing to under 40,000 in the late 1940s, and the causeway tram closes.
(* The “growth” in visitor numbers for the few years after 2005 seems to me to be a ploy to boost the sales value when seeking a new owner.) And, there are no figures for visitors during the 50s and 60 and 70s but I assume the numbers are pretty low, tens of thousands.
And it is my own guess of the tiny number for 2020, demolishing the NT’s financial reserves that were built up in the aberration years of the million-visitors

The Causeway is NI’s crown jewels: it puts us on the map. In the days when one could travel abroad, or met someone from abroad, if I say that I come from Portrush – well, some people, a few, would recognise that name.
If I say that I come from near the Giant’s Causeway – everyone knows where I come from.

The council visitor centre in 1986 was designed for 200,000 visitor numbers; the big NT visitor centre is a big step-up for 500,000 people. I don’t like the visitor centre myself but the building and NT’s international marketing lifts NI onto the world stage, after the Troubles and the Good Friday agreement. Several years of million -visitors -a -year levels raised NT reserves to high levels but the number of visitors was as a big overload on the Causeway environment. But even those levels of NT funds have been unable to cope with the decimation in tourism in Covid-2020. It will need many years to recover to the visitor levels of a few years ago.

Causeway school, built 1914 (Photos: courtesy, Me)
Antony Macnaghten describes himself as the ‘last man standing’ of the clan and gives super tours and stories of how the family supported the school and helped to shape the Causeway Coast

And finally, to mention the Macnaghten family. They built Runkerry in 1887, and the school in 1914. The last member of the family, Antony, gives more info and stories than my skip through history.

And so early, in these first few days of 2021, this episode ends with, “A merry Christmas and Happy New Year” from “the majority of Mr Macnaghten’s neighbours.”

PS Please do add your comments, preferably nice ones – I know this subject is very thorny for some people – it would be appreciated. David xx

The 1800s: of Trains, Tram and Tourists

In the 1700s, Portrush is still subdued after the invasions of the previous century – the castles and the abbey are in ruins, the ancient Ballywillan church at the top of the hill desecrated, there is no place of worship left in the town, all the bells are silenced.

Left, “Port Rush”, 1830’s -tiny, clustered around the harbour (from PRONI)
Right, Portrush, 1860s – more like itself now with churches, quayside, coast guard station, police barracks, salmon fishery, RC chapel away down on the right, rock ryan, ….. (PRONI, map)

A visitor in 1752 says, only a few houses of fishermen and pilots, no B&B for a traveller to stay overnight. Commerce? only one merchant, dealing in corn and kelp. The name “Portrush” might mean “the landing place” but the ‘Deac describes it as merely a little creek that runs with the tide, with sandy banks, and location treacherous in winter.

There is fishing, and big ships moor off the Skerries to collect migrants for the New World. But overall it is dark, lockdown- misery – only with very little to be locked down.

By the end of the 18th century though, people are starting to come and to walk on Crannagh and Ramore hills for the great vistas. Learned gentry come and study the rocks of Ramore and Lansdowne and the Causeway.

Access to the town improves by the building of that glory, the Antrim coast road, in the 1830s. Only a few years before, the Glens of Antrim were described as ‘a barren waste, miserable and lawless peasantry, cut off from any reasonable communication by the badness of the roads over mountains and slopes.

Left – the Harbour was built 1827 and this ad in 1836 is the launch of this steam ship service
Right, the coast road built in the 1830s….. you can imagine that in earlier times that north antrim was more accessible to the scottish islands, part of kingdon of dalriada, separated by the bogs and glens and mountains from down the antrim coast

The 1830s map still shows Portrush as tiny, a population about 340; I count about only 30 houses total, clustered around the harbour. But the harbour of the big plantation town of Coleraine is silting up and a new harbour is needed. So, 1827, Crannagh hill at Portrush is quarried away (the void becomes the coal yard /behind Waterworld) and its rock and the remains of Castle-an-Teenie are used in the harbour. The landowner, the MacDonnell family, Lord Antrim at Glenarm castle, sees the potential and builds the first hotel in the town, the super-posh Antrim Arms (that will become the Northern Counties).

Left, 1882: the tram coming soon, “will take you to the Causeway by lightning”; and wow, the view of transatlantic vessels going past every day in full sail
Right, Ladies bathing pool / Arcadia, 1890s, with steamer en route to Derry or the US from Glasgow or Liverpool

“Visitors to Portrush have the pleasure of seeing the transtalantic fleet pass by in full sail, about one or two each way per day.” That might be a great spectacle from Ramore Head!

Ferries arrive from Glasgow each bringing up to 1,000 visitors. And the Steam Train Cometh – the line opens in 1855 – and now everyone and his dog can come to Portrush. The population in 1881 has increased to 1,200, and with thousands of visitors staying too. The Causeway tram opens in 1883, and the first golf course in 1888. The nice new train station opens in 1892, showing off how much the town is improving.

Times are booming. Still, there were internet trolls: an 1892 writer says, ‘Portrush is dull, uninteresting…, not picturesque.., Ramore Head is rough.., there is no promenade.., Dunluce is dangerous…’ – then goes on to say how wonderful the golf is. A funny lot, golfers.

1892. What has Portrush to offer anyway? Play golf.

There had been no church bells or place of worship in the town since Munro’s destruction. The ancient Ballywillan church had been through the wars and in 1842 is replaced by the new Church of Ireland in the town. The presbyterian church is added, with lots of american funding, and the RC chapel. The Methodist church is developing too, with a bell that has come from the Emperor Alexander of Russia – via the Duke of Newcastle to the Wesleyan Dr. Adam Clarke.

Things are picking up, as a place to visit, to enjoy nature and fresh air, and places to worship too. Church bells ring out over the town..

“Just arrived in Portrush” postcard, 1902 Church of Ireland, built 1842 – just don’t touch that bell switch in the porch!

I am fourteen years old. It is Sunday morning. There are a handful of us in the Church of Ireland foyer, waiting for Maureen for her Sunday School class in the parochial rooms. The church bells have just rung 10 o’clock. We are trying to read something but it is winter and it is dark and gloomy. I see the electric switch in the corner, and switch it on. No lights – instead the church bell starts ringing…. I quickly switch it off again… If you have ever tried to reset the boings of a grandfather clock or the cucks of a cuckoo clock, you will know that it takes ages. I reckon resetting the church bells needs 227 boing’ings to get it back in sync. I imagine the whole Portrush population gathering, wondering why the church bell is ringing so much…

Mr Sammy Kane, the churchwarden, was in the porch the next Sunday morning and gently asks, ‘Did someone press the church bell switch by mistake last week?’

I hide.

Mr Kane was a very gracious quiet-spoken Christian gentleman. It was not a rollicking, but I never made that mistake again.

1900, main st, portrush (from Portrush FB site)