BORDERLANDS:A new initiative plans to draw tourists to the rich historical and geographical territory of the Border region, putting recent fears to bed, but drawing on a few ancient ones . . .
IN 1981, I taught English to Spanish students at a south Dublin summer school. We used to bring the students on day trips. When it was proposed to bring them to Drogheda, one teacher, from Wexford, was horrified. "Oh no," she said. "That's up in the direction, isn't it?" She meant it was too close for comfort to the plague winds of the North.
It is a dread that has kept many southern tourists from exploring the Border region, some of the most beautiful parts of which are also synonymous with trouble. Only a few weeks ago, journalist Olivia O'Leary described how, after a recent shopping trip to Belfast, she put her foot on the accelerator as she travelled south again through Ravensdale. A veteran reporter of the conflict during its worst years, she associated those lovely hills and forests with political murders. It was in this area that Captain Robert Nairac was killed by the IRA. His body was never found.
Now a new tourism initiative aims to dispel those ghosts and introduce us to a few that have been around even longer. Visit the slopes of Slieve Gullion, near Crossmaglen, and look at Annaghmore Court Cairn, from the Irish Ath na Marbh, "the ford of the dead".
There, among the human bones and fragments of pottery, archaeologists have found the teeth of bears. This is just one of many ancient tombs and monuments scattered around the Border counties, and listed in the handsome, practical and informative new "Borderlands" brochure.
It opens with a quote from Yeats. "That the borders of our mind are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy."
Dette Hughes is the development officer for tourism in the East Border region, which includes South Down, Armagh, Monaghan, Newry and Mourne, and Louth. "Cross-border is definitely fashionable these days," she says. "But we're a cross-border economic development agency and we've been around for 31 years." However, with the new political stability, it was decided that the time was right to start selling the region as a whole, drawing tourists from Drogheda north to Banbridge, and west to Clones. A lot of Border roads were closed by the British army for years, and there used to be long queues at checkpoints. All that has gone now.
"There is that freedom to explore," says Hughes.
There are castles and big houses, too, among them Richhill Castle in Co Armagh, with its towering Dutch gables and its early bog oak staircase - and its ghosts. Frankie Larkin of the Paranormal Society of Ireland, which meets in the castle on Friday nights, introduces me to them. "I'd just like to say to any spirit people here today, we are here for the benefit of Susan who is from a very prestigious newspaper. This will raise the profile of your home and maybe help get funding to repair your roof and save your home."
There's a large hole in the roof over the room in which the spirits usually communicate with the group. Gordon and Helen Little have lived in the castle for 50 years, and struggle with its costly upkeep. "The first thing we were told about the house is that it was haunted. Nobody could believe it when we stayed," says Gordon Little. "Sometimes when I'm alone working in the kitchen or around the house, I just know there is someone with me," says Helen Little.
"We co-exist quite happily." One of the spirits is Dolly Monro, known as "the beauty of the Bann". She inspired poetry and songs, and lived at Richhill in the late 18th century. "She has told us she hates to be known as Dolly, and prefers her proper name, Dorothea," says Larkin. "The spirits sometimes ask us things," says Jackie Larkin, Frankie's wife.
"Dorothea said to us, 'Find me', so we researched her burial place. We spend hours in libraries and records offices. We are all deeply interested in history." The group organises open nights, and Richhill Castle is open by appointment.
Many of the sites in Borderlands can be visited at any time, and at no cost. Anyone travelling in the east of the country should get this brochure. There really still is a hidden Ireland. There's more to "up in the direction" than IKEA, you know.
www.borderlands-ireland.com