Giant’s Ring

Today was lovely--sunny and not too cold--so I decided a hike was in order. Plan A: download an app to my phone so I could listen to a BBC Radio 4 podcast. I downloaded the app and found the podcast I wanted (minor miracle), then realised I don’t have earbuds. Stores don’t open until 1 pm on Sundays, so I decided to experience nature as Derek Mahon intended--unfiltered.

I parked at Shaw’s Bridge, a picturesque stone bridge over the Lagan River and hiked to the top of a nearby hill, where there are lovely gardens open to the public belonging to a house that isn’t.

There I met a lovely chap called Joby Fox, a singer songwriter who invited me to like his page. He was in awe of this lovely place, three miles from where he lives, that he had never visited. He said people didn’t stray too far from home during the Troubles and now they live in wonder as they venture beyond their self-imposed boundaries. He said people in Belfast are like rubber bands that were wound tightly and are now springing loose with vigour. Except he put it more poetically because he’s a singer songwriter and I’m not.

The photos don’t give credit to the distant hills or, in the one above, Malone House (a white speck in the distance).

The next delightful surprise was running into my friend Sheena, out for a walk with her man friend Hubert. We walked together to my destination, the Giant’s Ring. From Wiki:
"The Giant's Ring dates from the Neolithic period and was built around 2700BC, meaning that it predates the Egyptian pyramids.”

The henge is 590 feet in diameter with what once were stone walls all the way round and a burial tomb in the middle. Here again, the photos don’t do it justice.

12-3