Glorious United Kingdom – Northern Ireland

The site at Beaghmore, discovered during peat cutting in the 1940s, consists of 7 stone cirlces. All of the rings are associated with cairns and a stone row runs towards these. It may be that Neolithic occupation and cultivation preceded the erection of the burial cairns, ceremonial circles and alignments.

Although the label states “Customs House, Belfast” there is something rather “fishy” going on here and  this is not actually what we see! Outside the Customs House there is a Big Fish Sculpture which is what is depicted and indeed has become a big attraction in its own right. It was commissioned to crown the face lift of the Belfast Docks and is by John Kindness. As you can make out from the label each scale of the fish is made up of a tile with every tile telling a story about Belfast going back hundreds of years.

Scrabo Tower is located to the west of Newtonards in County Down, Northern Ireland. This landmark was built on a volcanic plug above the town in 1857 as a memorial to Charles Stewart, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry who was one of the Duke of Wellington’s Generals during the Napoleonic Wars. The tower houses two floors of displays and a climb of 122 steps leads to the open viewing level.

White Island is in Lower Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The island is best known for its carved figures which as you can see from the label sit in a line along the interior north wall of the church, most of them carved wearing long tunics of churchmen. They are all carved out of quartzite probably sometime between 800 and 1000 and later used as building stones in the church.

Frederick Hervey, the Bishop of Derry, chose a wild coastal headland to build a mansion and temple. On a cliff top he built the circular Mussenden Temple as a library which imitates the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli – a very dramatic setting!