Newry to Portaferry. Monday 6/9/04

All roads, as I said, lead to Belfast. There's a real psychological interplay here between the heart of Northern Ireland and the larger towns. Belfast is becoming a centrality. Derry seems to be the only one that doesn't have to feed back to it so much. Thanks then to Northern Ireland's mono-lined railways system.

I remember a song line from a session in Bangor, 'Oh town of Belfast, Oh town of Belfast, it’s future gets shorter with every blast…oh wonderful wonderful town of Belfast…'

If anybody can tell me the rest of the words, put a comment on the blog. I'm desperate to get people involved in this site. The original idea was a reflective vision by an outside voice. Now it's important I throw it out to more wider interested parties. Slugger is doing this to a certain extent, but is more at the cutting edge of politics and news. I think Mick would agree with me there. I want to take a creative angle to the blog; using poetry to explore changes in Northern Ireland as well as references to literature and even the bringing together of communities through creative work. This last issue, I'd like to see more evidence about.

I'm not going to describe the journey to the city. I'm sure I've described similar ones before - houses sprouting up like cabbages, occasional towns with bunting asking devotion to the Queen and the gigging up of green to replace with roadworks. One of these journeys reminded me of when I traveled across former East Germany. Macdonalds had already moved in, but the roads had to be widened from one land to three.

Though the driving is utterly poles apart, (the fast lane would invariably mean 130 miles an hour) the road would skin down from a triple heart bypass to a measly one liner and being face to face with a pile of gravel to wave us on to the traffic lights. One set of German traffic lights would change to green every ten minutes for about three seconds. There were times when we just had to take risks and increase our laundry bill. Oh, and I never saw a Trabant - not once. Sorry - we were talking about Ireland.

There may be interesting parallels with Germany and Ireland - I'm not sure. It may be worth noting; an interesting (well - fairly) way to bring a couple of beehives together (we're not talking hair-do's) is to put some punctured newspaper between the two and let the bees very slowly chew their way through to the other side. In this way, both sides have time to get used to each other.

I never (and probably never will) worked out which bus station to get what bus I need. Is it the (lagging) Lagan Side or is it the Europa? I wonder if there's a children's rhyme to remember it by. Perhaps Ladybird has possibilities here for joint publication of timetables.

So firstly, Belfast to Newtonards then…all change! I work my way along the west coast of the dangly bit that is the Ards peninsular. You'd imagine the coast would have been a lovely meandering view. It left me with my soul in my mouth and the only thing that would provide any healing would be a good healthy primal scream. I stopped myself; there were schoolchildren present doing their usual hour's run home after a hard day's study. At the other end, I was told, Oh, well, you should have got the…bus. Never mind (I'm beginning to use this conjunction as often as the phrase I remember when I was last here).

I remember when I was last here, we got the ferry over from the Downpatrick side. That treat I shall have tomorrow. I was to run a workshop at Barholm Hostel that night. I phone on the way to let them know I was coming. Linda couldn't meet me but her colleague would open up instead. Within five minutes of me being there, she was phoning up for information to help me get back in the morning. There's a big regeneration going on with the building. However you feel it looks like on the outside, inside is clean and welcoming. And for me, as support to the poetry project it was also free.

Linda had done her homework. She'd sent out plenty of leaflets to advertise the session, put up lots of posters and made sure the whole planet knew. Even though she was hosting a meeting, she took the time out to get a local press photographer for that evening. The planet sent but one representative. This, I'm told, is typical. Few creative writing sessions get students and have to fold because of it. I always thought that Ireland's literary history (not just confined to Dublin!) would encourage participation in language arts. A stupid presumption or a sign of the times?

Dave (from an Irish Writer's Group and a healthy contributer to the Blogg) had come along to find out about the project and to talk creativity. He and myself sat and chatted at length about everything from the state of the writing scene to weird and wacky ideas to encourage new scribblers. If you're out there Dave, let me know how it's going. Oh, and the photographer was also called Dave.

I mentioned that Portaferry seemd to have escaped the developers wrath. Not so apparently. There were already (three?) churches sold for conversion into luxury apartments - but well out of the price league of locals. Close to the back of the hostel was an Orangeman's Hall, also up for a price tag.

Extremely good sleep thank you very much. I'll tell you about my morning soonZZZZZzzzz