A journey through Lent 2023 with Samuel Johnson (24)

Inside the chapel in Trinity College, Dublin … Samuel Johnson received an honorary doctorate in 1765 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on words from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer and writer who compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary.

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day [17 March 2023], and it is worth recalling that Samuel Johnson is forever known as ‘Doctor Johnson’ because of the honorary doctorate he received from the University of Dublin (Trinity College Dublin) almost 260 years ago in 1765.

Johnson was a close friend of the Irish-born politician Edmund Burke (1729-1797), who was educated at Trinity College Dublin, but they strongly disagreed with each other on their political views. According to his biographer James Boswell, Johnson once said of Burke:

In private life he is a very honest gentleman; but I will not allow him to be so in publick life. People may be honest, though they are doing wrong; that is between their Maker and them. But we, who are suffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy them. We are sure that [Burke] acts from interest. We know what his genuine principles were. They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.

Johnson’s other Irish friends in London included Oliver Goldsmith, Arthur Murphy, Charles O’Connor, Bishop Thomas Percy of Dromore and Bishop Thomas Barnard of Killaloe, and, in a curious accident of history the papers of his biographer, James Boswell, were eventually found in Malahide Castle, Co Dublin.

In his Life of Johnson, Boswell records Johnson as having famously said on one occasion:

The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a fair people; – they never speak well of one another.

Boswell also records the following conversation with Johnson:

He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour.

Johnson: It is the last place where I should wish to travel.

Boswell: Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?

Johnson: No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital.

Boswell: Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?

Johnson: Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

But what did Johnson truly think of Ireland? Boswell recalls Johnson once saying during a conversation with an Irishman on the state of Irish politics:

Do not make a union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.

He also recalls Johnson saying:

The Irish are in a most unnatural state; for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which the protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholicks. Did we tell them we have conquered them, it would be above board: to punish them by confiscation and other penalties, as rebels, was monstrous injustice.

In a letter to the Irish writer and historian Charles O’Connor (1710-1791), Johnson wrote in 1755:

I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities of languages, to be further informed of the revolution of a people so ancient, and once so illustrious.

Continued tomorrow

Yesterday’s reflection

‘Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see’ (Samuel Johnson) … on the cliffs above the Giant’s Causeway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A ‘virtual tour’ of the 12 ‘extreme’ points at the edges of Ireland

Sunrise on the banks of the River Shannon in Athlone in the heart of Ireland … but what are the furthest extremes of the island? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have to accept at this stage that I am not going to Greece this year, and – much to my regret – my holiday in Thessaloniki and Halkidiki at the end of August and beginning of September has now been cancelled.

Of course, I would prefer to be healthy this year, and hope to travel to Greece on a number of occasions next year, than to travel to Greece now and not be able to go there at all this year. And I would hate to find out that I had either brought Covid-19 with me to Greece or, instead, brought it back to Ireland.

Now, by way of compensation, I am planning 10 or 12 days in southern Ireland, visiting favourite places – and some new places – in counties Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford.

Living in Askeaton for the past three years or more, I have been able to visit parts of Ireland that might have been more difficult to reach in other circumstances, from the Aran Islands in Galway Bay to the extremities of the Kerry peninsulas.

What are the furthest extremes of Ireland that you have visited?

When we take the map of the full island and exclude offshore islands and rocky outcrops – ignoring Rockall and Rathlin for example – there are 12 ways of defining the extreme points of Ireland: the whole island; the Republic of Ireland, excluding Northern Ireland; and then Northern Ireland on its own.

On the cliffs above the Giant’s Causeway … the farthest north I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Four extreme points on the mainland of Ireland:

The extreme points of the mainland of Ireland, in clockwise direction, are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Burr Point on Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (10° 28′ 46″ W)

The geographical centre of Ireland is 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree.

It is interesting that the most northern point on the island is in the Republic of Ireland and not in Northern Ireland, that the point furthest east is in Northern Ireland, and the extreme points south and west are so close to one another (at least as the crow flies).

Mizen Head … the furthest south I have been in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have not been to all these extremities. But the furthest north, east, south and west I have been on the island of Ireland to date are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N). My most recent visit to the Giant’s Causeway was on 12 November 2016, when I was on a visit to the North Antrim coast.

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W). I was there in September 1998 to speak at the Annual Conference of the Church of Ireland Men’s Society in Donaghadee Parish Church on ‘The 1798 Rebellion and the Church of Ireland.’ During that visit I stood on the shoreline, with a clear view across to the coast of Scotland.

South: The furthest south I have been is at Mizen Head, visiting the lighthouse or signal station (51° 27' 00" north) on 21 May 2016. Earlier that same day I had lunch in O’Sullivan’s in Crookhaven (51° 28' 09" north), which claims to serve the ‘most southerly pint in Ireland.’

West: When I travelled through the Dingle Peninsula on 20 September 2017, I stood at the end of western tip of Slea Head (51° 28' 09" N), near Dunmore Head, looking at the Blasket Islands.

Looking out at the Blasket Islands from the western tip of Slea Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The geographical centre of Ireland, according to the Irish Ordnance Survey, is in the townland of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon on the west shore of Lough Ree, where the 8° Meridian West meets the 53°30' North Latitude. It is opposite the Cribby Islands and 8.85 km north-north-west of Athlone Town. Lecarrow is the closest population centre.

An alternative centre-point for Ireland has been placed, at a point 3 km south of Athlone in east Co Roscommon. So, if I have to place myself in the middle of Ireland, then I have been to Athlone many times, and on the shores of Lough Ree, and enjoyed a rink in Sean’s Bar, which claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, and perhaps the pub in the heart of Ireland too.

Wicklow Harbour … probably the furthest east I have been in the Republic of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But I have not been to all the extremities of the Republic of Ireland either. They are:

North: Banba’s Crown at the tip of Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal (Latitude: 55° 23′ 4″ N)

East: Wicklow Head, Co Wicklow (05° 99′ 78″); although, if the islands are included, the point furthest east is Lambay Island (06° 00′ 54″ W)

South: Brow Head, near Mizen Head, Co Cork (Latitude: 51° 26′ 52″ N)

West: Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry (Longitude: 10° 28′ 46″ W)

The furthest north, east, south and west I have been in the Republic of Ireland to date are:

North: The furthest north I have been in the Republic is Redcastle on the Inishowen Peninsula, Co Donegal, when I was at an ordination in the late 1980s, or Arnold’s Hotel, in Dunfanaghy, when the then Bishop Michael Jackson invited me to speak at the Clogher Clergy Conference. So, I need to make some careful calculations to figure out this piece of extreme tourism.

East: Wicklow Town, the tip of Howth Head or the shores of Portrane, Co Dublin, looking out onto Lambay Island. I never managed to complete a boat trip from Skerries to Lambay Island one summer’s evening some years ago, and I have not yet walked out to the edge of Wicklow Town. So, once again, I need to make some difficult calculations.

South: Mizen Head and Crookhaven.

West: The end of western tip of Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula.

Looking out at Lambay Island from the shores of Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The four extreme points of mainland Northern Ireland, excluding the islands, are:

North: Benbane Head, Co Antrim (55°15′ N)

East: Burr Point, Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5° 25′ 58″ W)

South: a point south of Greencastle, Co Down (54° 2′ N)

West: Bradoge Bridge, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), and the most westerly town in Northern Ireland is nearby Belleek (8°10′ W).

The four extreme limits of Northern Ireland I have visited are:

North: the Giant’s Causeway, Co Antrim (55° 14′ 27″ N)

East: Donaghadee, on the Ards Peninsula, Co Down (5.53° W)

South: The furthest south I have been in Northern Ireland is Kilkeel, Co Down (54.059°N), on the road from Rostrevor to Newcastle.

West: A point west Belleek, Co Fermanagh (8°10′ W), crossing the border on a minor road from Bundoran, Co Donegal, into Garrison, Co Fermanagh, around 1970.

Sean’s Bar in Athlone, beneath the shadows of Athlone Castle, claims to date back to 900 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A second look at Samuel Johnson’s opinion of Irish writers and literature

Samuel Johnson in pensive mood … his statue in the Market Square, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer and writer, is still known as the compiler of the first authoritative English-language dictionary. Yet the accidental discovery of papers of his biographer, James Boswell (1740-1795), in an Irish castle gives us many insights into his life and his literary circle.

Two well-known statues of Johnson and Boswell are the gifts and works of the Dundalk-born artist and writer Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald (1834-1925): the statue of Johnson at Saint Clement Dane’s Church in The Strand, London (1910), and an earlier statue of Boswell (1908) in the Market Place, Lichfield.

Samuel Johnson’s statue at Saint Clement Dane’s in The Strand, London, by the Irish sculptor Percy Fitzgerald (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In his inscription on the Lichfield statue, Fitzgerald describes himself as the ‘Biographer of Boswell and editor of Boswell’s Johnson.’

However, the literary theorist Terry Eagleton has described Johnson as being ‘virulently anti-Gaelic.’ So, during on a recent visit to Lichfield, I found myself taking another look at Dr Johnson’s Irish connections and the Irish figures in his circle of friends.

A doctorate from TCD

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samuel Johnson had a wide circle of Irish friends in London, had positive opinions about Irish writers and Irish literature, and is known forever as Doctor Johnson because of the honorary degree he received from Trinity College Dublin.

At an early stage, Johnson failed to secure employments as a schoolmaster because he did not have a university degree. When Johnson’s private school at Edial near Lichfield became a financial disaster, he moved to London. There, while he working as a journalist, his skills as a writer were recognised in 1738 with his poem London, which attracted the praise of Alexander Pope.

Samuel Johnson’s house in Gough Square, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Pope knew Johnson feared being drawn into the hack journalism of ‘Grub Street’ and still hoped to become a grammar school teacher, Pope wrote to the Staffordshire politician, John Leveson-Gower (1694-1754), Earl Gower, asking him to act on Johnson’s behalf.

Gower asked Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, to intervene so that Johnson might receive an MA from TCD. Either Gower’s pleas fell on deaf ears or Swift refused to act; Johnson never received the degree, never worked again as a teacher, and so continued to work as a journalist and writer.

The Long Room in Trinity College Dublin … Samuel Johnson received an honorary doctorate in 1765 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Eventually, with the publication of his Dictionary, TCD bestowed an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Johnson in 1765, and for ever after he was known as Dr Johnson.

Swift and Johnson

The statue of James Boswell in the Market Square, Lichfield, by the Irish artist Percy Fitzgerald (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Boswell recalled that Johnson ‘seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift.’ Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s father, Thomas Sheridan (1721-1788), was Swift’s godson and once worked in the theatre with David Garrick.

But when Boswell asked Johnson whether Swift had personally offended him, ‘he told me he had not.’ Johnson went on to tell Boswell: ‘Swift is clear, but shallow. In coarse humour he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour he is inferior to Addison.’

Johnson’s Life of Swift reveals that he actually liked the dean. Commenting on Wood’s Halfpence, he says Swift ‘delivered Ireland from plunder and oppression, and shewed that wit, confederated with truth, had such force as authority was unable to resist.’

Johnson evoked Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in his series of ‘Parliamentary Reports,’ which he disguised as from ‘The Senate of Lilliput.’ The debates were secret at the time and it was illegal to reproduce them in print, making it a true test of Johnson’s ability to write imaginative and satiric works.

Three Irish bishops

John Myatt’s mural of Samuel Johnson on a corner wall in Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson was a High Church Anglican, and he was strongly influenced by the writings of the Caroline Divine Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, Dromore and Connor.

At times when Johnson ‘was most distressed,’ his biographer, Sir John Hawkins (1719-1789) recommended him to read Rules and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying by Jeremy Taylor and his Ductor Dubitantium.

Johnson regarded Jeremy Taylor as the best of ‘all the divines that have succeeded the fathers.’ He once adapted Taylor’s words for his private preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Two Church of Ireland bishops who were part of Johnson’s inner circle were Thomas Percy of Dromore and Thomas Barnard of Killaloe.

Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore (1782-1811), was once described by Archbishop Stuart as ‘inactive and useless,’ but he was an important literary figure in his day. He was a member of Johnson’s Literary Club, a friend of Oliver Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, which fired the imagination of Walter Scott.

Bishop Thomas Barnard … a portrait in the vestry in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Thomas Barnard (1727-1806) was part of Johnson’s circle of friends in London while he was Bishop of Killaloe (1780–1794). Barnard, who later became Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe (1794-1806), was a member of the Literary Club, and his friends in London included Boswell, Garrick, Goldsmith, Percy, Reynolds and Edmund Burke.

In 1783, Johnson wrote a charade as a tribute to Barnard, and he once said of him: ‘No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me … Always, sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate his friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.’

Oliver Goldsmith’s statue outside Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson was particularly high in his praise of Oliver Goldsmith, contributed lines to both The Deserted Village and The Traveller, and he said of Goldsmith’s Traveller: ‘There has not been so fine a poem since Pope’s time.’

Praising She Stoops To Conquer, Johnson said: ‘I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedy – making an audience merry.’

In his Latin epitaph for Goldsmith, Johnson wrote:

Oliver Goldsmith: A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn;
Of all passions, whether smiles were to be moved or tears,
A powerful yet gentle master;
In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile,
In style, clear, elevated, elegant -
The love of companions,
The fidelity of friends,
And the veneration of readers,
Have by this monument honoured the memory.

Irish politicians

Edmund Burke’s statue outside Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The many Irish politicians among Johnson’s friends included Edmund Burke, and the brothers Thomas Fitzmaurice and William Fitzmaurice, who became Lord Shelburne and later Lord Lansdowne.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born in Dublin and educated at TCD, but he spent most of his political career in England and as an MP in Westminster. Johnson admired Burke for his brilliant mind.

A silhouette of Hester Thrale, Samuel Johnson’s muse, at Thrale’s House on Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson’s muse, Hester Thrale (Mrs Piozzi), quotes Johnson as once saying of Burke: ‘You could not stand five minutes with that man beneath a shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever yet seen.’

But Johnson strongly disagreed with Burke’s politics, which he condemned in his pamphlet The Patriot. Perhaps Johnson had Burke in mind when he made his famous remark about patriotism and scoundrels.

Thomas FitzMaurice (1742-1793) was the second son of John FitzMaurice, Earl of Shelburne. His wife, Lady Mary O’Brien, was a daughter of Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin, and in 1790 she inherited the title of Countess of Orkney from her mother.

Thomas FitzMaurice was a friend of Johnson, Garrick and the Thrales, and was MP for Calne and Chipping Wycombe. When he died in 1793, the Gentleman’s Magazine noted: ‘He formerly lived on the most intimate terms with Johnson, Hawkesworth, and Garrick.’

His brother, William Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), became 2nd Earl of Shelburne and a prominent statesman. He was British Prime Minister from 1782 to 1783 and Marquess of Lansdowne. Johnson praised him as ‘a man of abilities and information,’ open to ideas, and said he ‘acted like himself, that is, unlike anybody else.’

Other members of Johnson’s Club included Lord Charlemont, the Irish politician, Agmondesham Vesey (1708-1785) of Lucan, Accountant-General of Ireland, and Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, first husband of Lady Sarah Lennox of Celbridge, Co Kildare, an aunt of Lord Edward FitzGerald.

‘The last place where I should wish to travel’

Aphorisms from Samuel Johnson seen in the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Johnson’s circle of Irish friends in London also included Arthur Murphy and Charles O’Conor. However, Boswell, in his Life of Johnson records Johnson as having famously said on one occasion: ‘The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a fair people; – they never speak well of one another.’

Boswell also records the following conversation with Johnson:

He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour.

Johnson: It is the last place where I should wish to travel.

Boswell: Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?

Johnson: No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital.

Boswell: Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?

Johnson: Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

The bust commemorating Samuel Johnson in the south transept, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But what did Johnson truly think of Ireland? Boswell recalls Johnson once saying to an Irishman, during a conversation on Ireland’s political state: ‘Do not make a union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.’

He also recalls Johnson saying: ‘The Irish are in a most unnatural state … Did we tell them we have conquered them, it would be above board: to punish them by confiscation and other penalties, as rebels, was monstrous injustice.’

In a letter to the Irish writer and historian Charles O’Conor (1710-1791), Johnson wrote in 1755: ‘I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities of languages, to be further informed of the revolution of a people so ancient, and once so illustrious.’

Papers in Malahide Castle

Malahide Castle, Co Dublin … James Boswell’s papers were discovered accidentally in the 1920s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In an accident of history, two collections of the private papers of James Boswell, including intimate journals for much of his life, were discovered in Malahide Castle, Co Dublin, in the 1920s and sold to an American collector Ralph H Isham, by James Boswell Talbot (1874-1948), Lord Talbot of Malahide.

Lord Talbot of Malahide was Boswell’s great-great-grandson. But both sets of papers were not sold until Lady Talbot tried, without success, to censor some of Boswell’s more explicit descriptions of his sexual encounters.

Boswell’s papers are now in Yale University and they provide revealing insights into his life and thoughts of Johnson and his biographer. They include voluminous notes on his Grand Tour of Europe, his tour of Scotland with Johnson, and meetings and conversations with eminent members of The Club, including Garrick, Burke, Goldsmith and Reynolds.

Samuel Johnson’s statue on the exterior of the choir in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This feature was first published in May 2018 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

Words of wisdom from Samuel Johnson at the Queen’s Head, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Listening to legends of castles, giants and salmon fishers on the Antrim coast

On the Causeway Coast in Co Antrim, above the Giant’s Causeway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

On my Saturday visit to the Antrim coast two weeks ago [12 November 2016], after walking through the ‘Dark Hedges’ and visiting Gracehill House, I moved on to visit Dunluce Castle, the Giant’s Causeway and the Rope Bridge at Carrick-a-Rede, three of the most popular and most-visited tourist sites in Northern Ireland.

Dunluce Castle is a mediaeval ruin perched precariously on the craggy and treacherous Antrim coast in north-east Ulster. It stands on the edge of a basalt outcropping on the coast between Portballintrae and Portrush.

The steep cliffs and drops beneath the castle may explain why a fort has stood on this site from early times, and the first castle on this site was built in the 13th century by Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster.

The McQuillans came from Scotland in the 1200s as hired mercenaries, and were the Lords of Route from the late 13th century. They built their castle on the cliffs around 1500, and the earliest written record of the castle dates from 1513. The earliest features of the castle are two large drum towers about 9 metres (30 feet) in diameter on the east side, both remains of the castle built by the McQuillans after becoming Lords of the Route.

The McQuillan family continued to hold Dunluce Castle for anonther 55 years until it was taken by the MacDonnells, who came over from Islay in 1554. The McQuillans lost two major battles with the MacDonnells in the mid-16th century, and the McDonnells took Dunluce Castle by force in 1565 after the Battle of Orla. It is said the McDonnells covered a bog with rushes and stationed a few men on firm ground, fooling the McQuillans into charging into the bog.

Dunluce Castle then became the home of the chief of the Clan MacDonnell of Antrim and the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg from Scotland.

John Mor MacDonald of Dunluce Castle was the second son of ‘Good’ John MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles, 6th chief of Clan Donald in Scotland. His mother, Princess Margaret, was a daughter of King Robert II of Scotland.

In 1584, on the death of James MacDonald, the 6th chief of the Clan MacDonald of Antrim and Dunnyveg, the Antrim Glens were seized by Sorley Boy MacDonnell, one of his younger brothers. Sorley Boy rebuilt Dunluce in the Scottish style, and swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth I.

The castle also has links with the Girona, a ship in the Spanish Armada that foundered on the rocks of the Giant’s Causeway. Sorley Boy MacDonnell retrieved the cannons from the shipwreck and mounted them in the castle. The rest of the cargo was sold, and the funds raised were used to restore the castle. The dead crew of the Girona are said to have been buried in Saint Cuthbert’s graveyard.

Sorley Boy’s son, Randal MacDonnell, was made 1st Earl of Antrim by King James I. Randal and his wife frequently visited the royal court in London and filled the castle with riches including curtains from Cardinal Wolsey and chairs of State.

The countess is aid to have built Saint Cuthbert’s Church near the castle. It was originally thatched and the ceiling plaster was decorated with signs of the zodiac. Saint Cuthbert’s was the only church in Ireland with that name and is thought to be linked to the cult of the saint in Northumbria. Saint Cuthbert’s in Bushmills takes its name from this church in Dunluce.

Dunluce Castle on the Antrim coast … did the castle kitchens ever fall into the sea below? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A local legend claims that on a stormy night in 1639, as the family was waiting for dinner, the castle kitchens next to the cliff face, along with kitchen staff, collapsed into the sea, and that Lady Antrim refused to live in the castle any longer.

The legend says that only a kitchen boy survived, as he was sitting in a corner of the kitchen that did not collapse. However, the kitchen is still intact and next to the manor house, with the oven, fireplace and entry ways. It was not until the 18th century that the north wall of the castle collapsed and fell into the sea. The east, west and south walls are still standing.

General Munro arrested and imprisoned the Earl of Antrim in 1642 and ransacked the castle. The Earl of Antrim returned to Dunluce Castle after 1666. One of his visitors was Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, who was later martyred on Tyburn Hill.

Dunluce Castle was the seat of the Earls of Antrim until the MacDonnells were impoverishwd of in 1690, following the Battle of the Boyne, when Alexander MacDonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim, supported the cause of James II.

The family abandoned Dunluce Castle, moved to Glenarm Castle, and since then Dunluce Castle has deteriorated. When the MacDonnell line looked look dying out, the ttile was restored on many occasions to daughters in the family, whose husbands and sons changed their name to MacDonnell and McDonnell and the family titles were rescued from extinction at different times. Over the years parts of the castle were scavenged and used as materials for nearby buildings.

Alexander Randal Mark McDonnell, 9th Earl of Antrim, still owns Dunluce Castle, but lives in Glenarm Castle. His son and heir, Randal Alexander St John McDonnell, is known as Viscount Dunluce. Dunluce Castle is managed by the Northern Irish Environment Agency.

The castle appeared on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s album Houses of the Holy (1973). It is said to be the inspiration behind the royal castle of Cair Paravel in CS Lewis’s Narnia stories.

In 2011, major archaeological excavations found significant remains of the lost town of Dunluce, razed to the ground during the wars of 1641. Lying beside Dunluce Castle, the town was built around 1608 by Randall MacDonnell, 1st Earl of Antrim, and predates the official Plantation of Ulster.

The MacDonnells brought Scottish settlers over to found the trading town of Dunluce. The town, designed to rival Coleraine, had Scottish, Irish, English and Welsh residents, as well as people from Continental Europe. However, the town was a failure because it had no port that could be used for trading.

Over the last five years, the archaeological digs have uncovered cobbled streets and stone merchants’ houses. The digs uncovered a Scottish merchant’s house, built in the first two decades of the 17th century, fronting onto the cobbled streets. The walls survive to waist height with plastered walls, an internal privy and a fireplace. The town also held a courthouse and a dungeon.

The recent excavations have discovered a cobbled street stretching through the town towards the castle, with a blacksmith’s forge, as well as coins dating back to the reigns of Elizabeth I and Charles I, bone combs, dress fastenings, thimble, gaming pieces, and the stem of a wine glass.

A bronze tuning pin used to tune harps suggests the presence of musicians. A 16th century Polish coin, kept as a token by the merchants, provides a reminder of the Scottish migrations to Poland.

Looking down on the Giant’s Causeway from the Causeway Coast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

From Dunluce Castle, I moved on to Bushmills and the Giant’s Causeway, about 5 km further east. The Giant’s Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, formed by an ancient volcanic eruption, perhaps 50 to 60 million years ago. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and a national nature reserve in 1987.

The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (39 feet) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 feet) thick in places.

According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool), who was challenged to a fight by a rival Scottish giant Benandonner. Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway so that the two giants could meet. Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns, formed by the same ancient lava flow, at Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa.

The discovery of the Giant’s Causeway was announced to the wider world in 1693 in a paper to the Royal Society by Sir Richard Bulkeley of Trinity College Dublin, although it had been discovered a year earlier during a visit by William King, Bishop of Derry and later Archbishop of Dublin.

The site received international attention when Dublin artist Susanna Drury exhibited watercolour paintings of it in 1739. The Giant’s Causeway first became popular with tourists in the 19th century.

Today, much of the Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site is owned and managed by the National Trust. The remainder of the site is owned by the Crown Estate and private landowners.

Crossing Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge near Ballintoy is said to have been first built by salmon fishermen in 1755. The bridge crosses a chasm that is 30 metres (98 feet) deep and 20 metres (66 feet) wide and was first built by fishermen to check their salmon nets.

The rope bridge links the Antrim coast and Carrick-a-Rede Island. Suspended above the rocks and the sea, the rope bridge is a popular tourist destination, attracting thousands of visitors who also come to see the Giant’s Causeway Coast and the Glens of Antrim.

The bridge and the island offer uninterrupted views of Rathlin Island, the coast of Scotland and the Causeway Coast. There are views of the clear, green water flowing around the caves and caverns far below, but the challenge alone makes this a popular attraction.

It is said local salmon fishermen have been building bridges to the island for over 350 years and it has taken many forms over the years. It is no longer used by fishermen during the salmon season. The season once lasted from June until September, but there are few salmon left there today. In the 1960s, almost 300 fish were caught each day, but by 2002 only 300 were caught over the whole season.

In the 1970s, the bridge had only one handrail and large gaps between the slats. A new bridge, tested up to ten tonnes, was built with the help of local climbers and abseilers in 2000. Another bridge was built in 2004. The current bridge was made of wire rope and Douglas fir bridge in Belfast and was built in 2008 at a cost of over £16,000.

From there we travelled along the coast on to Cushendun in the Glens of Antrim to admire the village that is the architectural creation of Clough Williams-Ellis, better known as the architect of Portmeirion in Wales.

A reminder of the centuries old traditions of the fishermen near Ballintoy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)