| Our Start Our Goal About Greg Vincent Garron Plateau Rathlin Island Church Bay | |
Our Start Carrickfergus was a thriving town when Belfast was a sandbank. When Henry II was king of England, the Norman John de Courcy had overthrown the kings of the north of Ireland and established his rule from Carlingford Lough up the east coast as far as Fair Head. In 1180 he built a massive keep to guard the approach to Belfast Lough at Carrickfergus - the first real Irish castle. In the early 17th century, Carrickfergus was the only place in the north where English was spoken; Gaelic was still the language of Ulster. | |
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Our Goal This spectacular castlecrowned crag on the famous north Antrim coast was shaped when the sea cut deep into the land, exploiting cracks on either side of the rock. The nomadic boatmen - Ireland's first inhabitants - who crossed from south-west Scotland in about 7,000 BC and left their flinty axes all along this rugged coast, must have seen the crag from the sea and may have ventured their flimsy coracles into the huge cave that runs through the rock to the land. You can still visit it by boat today. The early Christians and the Vikings were drawn to this romantic place and an early Irish fort once stood here. For its crowning glory, however, the crag had to await the coming of the master-builders, the Normans. They had a habit of consolidating their victories by building castles, and they knew a good site when they saw one. The battling MacDonnells ruled all this north-eastern corner of Ulster in the late 16th century. Steeped in myth and legend and inhabited by giants, ghosts and banshees wailing through the sea mist, it has the most dramatic coastline in the British Isles, a veritable textbook illustrating the geological story of the earth. The ancient rocks stick out as brightly coloured cliffs along the edge of the plateau…. red sandstones, white chalk, black basalt and blue clavs. Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, first built the castle at Dunluce. It often came under siege. In 1584 Sorley Boy MacDonnell captured it from the English when one of his men, employed in the castle, hauled his comrades up the cliff in a basket. Sorley Boy came into some money in 1588 when the Spanish Armada treasure ship Girona was wrecked by storm off the Giant's Causeway. He used it to modernise the castle but he must have skimped on the kitchen as in 1639 it fell into the sea and carried away the cooks and all their pots. Today the pretty blue flower of Dunluce' clusters round the castle's ruined shell and drifts of seapinks are the only sentinels. | |
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About Greg Vincent Greg Vincent, a retired navigator / air traffic controller, became hooked on walking in the mid 1970s as a balance away from busy airports. "Walking for me is the perfect combination of exercise, social interaction, exploration and learning. Each walk I do is a small adventure - I'm hooked!" Greg is a leader for the Bruce Trail Association, the Grand Valley Trails Association and the U.S. based Sierra Club. An active leader in Canada Greg also organizes and leads walking holidays in the U.S., Britain, Ireland, Cuba and Bermuda. With an interest in the human history, geology and flora of the areas he walks, Greg will help you discover these new places from an experienced and different aspect. If you are new to walking Greg has written many related articles which appear on his website: http://home.golden.net/~gvincent | |
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Garron Plateau This is the largest area of intact blanket bog in Northern Ireland supporting an array of associated floral and faunal communities, including a number of rare and notable plant and animal species, and a diverse upland breeding bird population. A combination of good quality and geographical position make this habitat very important. This is generally very species-rich, with a range of small sedges including dioecious sedge, flea sedge, tawny sedge and yellow-sedge. Herbs such as eyebright, marsh lousewort, common butterwort, lesser clubmoss, devil’s-bit scabious and marsh arrowgrass A large breeding population of Red Grouse is found on the plateau, along with a few pairs of Golden Plover and Dunlin, while Common Sandpiper are a frequent summer resident. The plateau also provides a good hunting ground for Merlin, Peregrine Falcon and to a lesser degree Buzzard, Hen Harrier and Ravens. | |
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Rathlin Island A rare place, wild, beautiful and of extraordinary ecological value and social interest, this island lies 6 miles off Ballycastle in Northeast Ireland and 16 miles from the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland. It is eight miles long and less than one mile wide. Shaped like a boot made with layers of basalt on limestone on the higher parts. It is surrounded by limestone and basalt sea cliffs reaching 470 ft in places. Three lighthouses stand as monuments to its wild coast while over 40 recorded shipwrecks lie in the depths of underwater cliffs, caves and a marine botanical paradise. The land, its history, environment and community are inextricably interrelated and this has created an island which can fire imagination and create the magic and magnetism for which the island are famed. Inhabited since Mesolithic times (6,000 BC) people have come and gone leaving their mark in abundance of flint and porcellinite ancient axe and arrowheads (5000 - 2000 B.C.). Bronze age graves (2000 - 3000 B.C.), a magical iron age fort (500 B.C. - 800 AD) where a local chieftain fought foreign marauders to protect the islands Princess Taise (around 200 AD). There are standing stones, (timeless) ancient church sites (450 - 1200 A.D.), village graves (1100 A.D.), Robert the Bruce’s Castle (1306 A.D.), the Mc Donnells "Lord of the Isles " tower house remains (1500’s), landlords manor house (1756) and churches (1720 and 1865) | |
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Church Bay Three massacres, the famine, the wild environment in which people lived, worked and survived and the terrible beauties have created the island and its community today. Layers upon layers of stories over the generations interpret how the people lived, thought, laughed and cried. Today there are just 100 people, before the famine there were over 1,200, but the present community are resilient and proud of their home. | |
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 | 234 King Street South Waterloo, Ontario N2J 1R3 | |
| Scott Allen, CTC | (519) 741-0770 Ext. 242 (800) 465-4437 | |
| E-mail: | scott@goligerstravel.com | |
| Other Office Locations Include: | 1067 Ontario Street Stratford, On N5A 6W6 403 Fairview Drive Brantford, On N3R 6T2 150 Main Street West, Palmerston, On N0G 2P0 | (519) 273 - 0550 (519) 759 - 1600 (519) 343 - 4917 |
| You may also contact Greg Vincent directly with any questions you may have on these tours at:
Phone: (519) 741-5310 or E-mail to: gvincent@golden.net. | ||