Land of song and legend

By BRIAN JOHNSTON

It all started when I was scrambling over the wall of a sheep paddock and then looked up to see a patchwork of green fields and wind-blown flowering gorse tumbling down to a whitewashed village on the edge of the bay far below.

I'd spent the day tramping the granite hills and purple peaks where the Mountains of Mourne, as the famous song has it, sweep down to the sea. The Irish Sea that would be, glinting below in the distance and pounding in great sheets of spray against the gull-haunted cliffs. It was then I started singing my way around the coast of Northern Ireland.

Oh Mary this London's a wonderful sight, I warbled ... But for all that I found there I might as well be, Where the Mountains o' Mourne sweep down to the sea. I didn't know any of the other words ...

Visiting Northern Ireland is like stepping into the mythical country I'd always imagined: the emerald fields, the haunting Irish music, a friendly, freckled people. Even the songs had come alive, framing the landscape in melancholy music.

I was discovering that a perfect day in Northern Ireland is spent tramping across its moors or along its craggy coastline, watching the sun set behind the haunting ruins of an ancient castle before retiring to a neighbourhood pub.

Entertainment doesn't get any more exciting than that, but if it's life in the fast lane you want - as a farmer propping up the bar in Newcastle told me one night - then you ought to have been born a greyhound.

I heard a lot more than that in pubs, for the Northern Irish happily regale visitors with ancient sagas of giants, fairies, shrieking female ghosts (banshees), and warrior queens of old. It was a giant, they said, who created the Isle of Man, which you can see on a clear day across the water from the Mourne Mountains; he lobbed an enormous handful of earth at a Scottish counterpart, but it fell short of its mark.

As you watch the bubbles seemingly drift downwards through your Guinness you'll hear these stories recounted as the gospel truth, and after you've sunk your lip into several creamy pints you might just begin to believe them.

The coastline where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea was once the domain of smugglers, but it's an easy transition in Northern Ireland from smugglers to saints. Head northwards and you'll come to the still, grey waters of Strangford Lough, a deep, protected inlet of the sea where St Patrick landed in 432 and began to convert the Irish to Christianity.

In the town of Downpatrick you can visit the saint's supposed gravesite; the rough, primitive-looking granite slab certainly looks the part. Actually the tombstone is only a century old, placed there to cover an increasingly deep pit created by the curious in the hope of unearthing the good saint's bones.

The whole region is dotted with Neolithic tombs and the remnants of monasteries and churches such as St Tassach's, one of the earliest Christian buildings in Ireland; grim romantic ruins surrounded by rushes and whispering breezes.

At Strangford you can hop across the mouth of Strangford Lough on a pitching car ferry, where you'll find yourself on the long Ards Peninsula caught between inlet and open sea.

When I debated with the greengrocer in Portaferry whether to drive along the lough-side or coast-side road his answer was simple: why not both, in a meandering circle and back again? And when I demurred about the time, he shrugged while polishing his apples, and said if I was in a hurry I'd better take myself off to New York.

And so I slowed down, and inspected the prawn boats at Portavogie and the ancient ring of standing stones at Kearney. On the shores of the lough I watched lazy yachts, and curlews wading in the mudflats. At Donaghadee I bought the local delicacy, dulse a type of dried seaweed - in a small bag, and nibbled on it as I walked along the harbour, gulls screaming like banshees overhead. Northern Ireland does that to you; after a few days I was perfectly happy to do no more than stare out to sea and watch the scudding clouds. And sing as I went, of course: Oh Danny Boy, the pipes the pipes are calling. From glen to glen, and down the mountainside ...

Rush around and the quintessential nature of Ireland passes you by; this is a place where time moves slowly and quality of life is more important than stress and busyness. I found the beauty of the Northern Irish coast down back lanes, where I had to slow the car literally to a cow's pace, and where fuchsia bushes dropped their red petals across the windscreen.

In Donaghadee I whiled away half an afternoon in a pub, where I was regaled with a long account of the hilarious mishaps of some cousin's wedding. Nearly everyone you meet has that extraordinary knack for storytelling, and plenty of time to indulge in it.

Maybe it was the beer, but soon I was singing again, because as another Irish song goes, it's six miles from Bangor to Donaghadee. One day down in Bangor I called on Miss Brown, she was up in her bathtub and couldn't come down ...

The town seemed hectic in comparison to the coastal villages; there was boating and yachting and golf, and kids running around on the beach, and an amusement fun-fair. And so I hurried on, around Belfast Lough, warbling as I went. Says I slip on something and come on down quick, so she slipped on the soap and was down in a tick ...

Next day I was ready to face the Antrim Coast, a region of such unspoiled landscapes and spectacular scenery I was in no hurry at all. Magnificent glens of rushing streams, waterfalls and wildflowers tumble down from the hills and open out into the sea; travellers are so spellbound the glens have the reputation of being haunted by the "wee folk".

By this time, like the Irish themselves, I'd become so uncertain where legend ended and reality began that I found myself keeping an eye out for leprechauns. Here was another chance for a song: The pale moon was rising above the green mountain, The sun was declining beneath the blue sea ...

The air smelled of salt, and crumbling churches and forts collapsed in poetic heaps against a dazzling sweep of ocean. At Carrick-a-rede I braved the infamous rope bridge - a teetering construction of planks strung between wires, swaying 25m above a pounding sea.

Not much further from Carrick-a-rede is the Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland's most visited tourist spot, where 40,000 hexagonal columns pack together to form a series of stepping stones which disappear into the waves. The geological phenomenon was caused by cooling lava - or perhaps by Finn McCool, a local giant and commander of the Irish King's army renowned for his strength. Having fallen in love with a lady giant on the Scottish island of Staffa, he built the causeway to bring her back to Ulster and thereafter (according to another fine ditty), He lived most happy and content, obeyed no law and paid no rent.

The Giant's Causeway is strange and beautiful but apt to be crowded, especially in summer. Visit in stormy weather, however, and you'll be rewarded by solitude and splendour.

Then you can warm the cockles of your heart at the Old Bushmills Distillery nearby, which was founded in 1608 and is the world's oldest whisky producer. Afterwards you can taste a drop and burst into song: I've been a wild rover for many a year, and I've spent all my money on whisky and beer ...

The Antrim Coast has more ancient ruins, castles, churches and whitewashed villages than you could visit in a month, and you'd have to kiss the Blarney Stone to get through all the legends associated with them.

You could do worse than enjoy a grand finale at Dunluce Castle near Bushmills. On a stormy night in 1639 part of the castle fell into the sea, and the kitchen servants and all the cooks were lost. It's said the nobles in the banqueting hall continued with their feasting undeterred, and the noise of their revelries can still be heard today in the dark hours of the morning.

And it's No! Nay! Never! No nay never no more, Will I play the wild rover, no never, no more ... The coastline sweeps away in the distance, dotted with whitewashed villages crouched low against the salt wind. You can still inspect the grand ruins, built on an isolated crag surrounded by the sea. The soft, mellow, Irish light works its magic on the haunting site, and I think I can hear the ghostly notes: No nay never no more, will I play the wild rover ...

And so I end as I began, to the strains of music - for this is, after all, the land of song and legend.

* Brian Johnston paid to travel to Ireland.

* Up to 40,000 people will head for Ireland in October for what organisers call"Europe's friendliest jazz festival". The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival will feature around 1000 musicians from 25 countries who will appear at more than 75 venues across Cork. Concert tickets go on sale on September 1 but travel and accommodation should be booked early.

Ireland

Cork Jazz Festival