A cycling trip along the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland brings us – a Dutch violinist and Irish singer-songwriter – through a beautiful scenery. We meet many people who grew up in the Borderland, from barman Dessie McKenzie (also an undertaker and shopkeeper) to farmer Dessie McManus, one of the locals who used a digger to get rid of British roadblocks during The Troubles.
Our cycling route:
https://www.komoot.com/collection/2021875/-borderland-by-bike
BICYCLE GEAR
Bike: idworx oPinion BLT
Bike Panniers: Ortlieb Back-Roller Design Sierra https://de.ortlieb.com/en/products/back-roller-design?variant=49067040047436
Handlebar Bag: Ortlieb Ultimate Free
Ultimate Free
CAMERA GEAR
Camera: Sony A7IV
Lens: Sony FE 24-105mm F/4.0 G
Extra lens: Sony FE 20mm F/1.8 G
Microphone: Røde VideoMic PRO+
Another microphone: Røde Lavalier GO
Stand: Joby GorillaPod 5K
Drone: DJI Mini 4 Pro
Extra camera: iPhone 14
Action camera: Insta360 One X2
There was a battle
one time here. There were about
300 or 400 Brits here. And they were trying to
dig out this bridge. And the boys came
down with this digger. And the two diggers were fighting.
It was like something from a dinosaur film with a big
mix of the two diggers. But they were never
able to stop you? They never broke the spirit of
the people to keep their roads open. I’m Jessica,
the Fietsvlogger. Dutch for bicycle vlogger. Together with singer-songwriter
Paul O’Brien I’m cycling from Derry to Dundalk, all along the
border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. With in our bike bags,
a violin and a guitar. Along the way, we will meet many
people who grew up in the borderlands. This borderline goes up and down, crossing rivers, crossing towns. This border line goes up and down As we rolled through town After four days of cycling,
we have reached the village of Boho, where we will be staying two nights with
Paul’s cousin and her family We just took the boat from
Enniskillen to Devenish Island It’s a monastery from the 6th century and it was a very important
place for pelgrims. Now I’m standing here, I can totally
understand why they build it here. It’s such a peaceful place. You can hear the birds and it’s all surrounded by water, of course. And after this, we’re going to join the session, the music session
in The Linnet Inn. Because, I mean, we’ve been
kind of carrying the fiddle and guitar with us, so
better use them. The owner of The Linnet Inn,
Dessie Mckenzie, is a multitasker He doesn’t just run the pub He is the local spokesperson,
shopkeeper, and undertaker There you go, phone call. Your car is ready. No problem. You can pick it up tomorrow evening. The keys are here. That phone call, that’s just goes
to show you an interesting feature. Your local publican in the country area could also
be your local undertaker. In other circumstances,
he could be your local politician or he
could be an auctioneer. That’s a man that comes in
here that has his car damaged in an accident where a deer
ran out in front of him on the road. No one is able to
annoy me here. We head to the cave bar built
by Dessie’s father for a short interview. You just got a phone call there
and that was for repairing a car. But you don’t repair the cars?
No, I don’t repair the car. I’m just the middle man there. You’re the middleman of everything. Yes, the car is parked outside. I have the key of it now. Someone
comes out and they collect the key. That’s what you kind
of get in a local pub. You get a lot of things going on
that you won’t get in a town. You’re part of the
neighborhood watch. You’re the local ear
for all the news. You kind of perform
a lot of functions as being the local
publican in a rural pub. And you see that a
lot in local pubs? Yes, it’s part of everyday
life, you know? But we’re not too far away from the
nearest town, which would be the big town, which would we
Enniskillen. We’re also just five miles from the border, Belcoo and Blacklion,
Fermanagh – Cavan border. So we’re very used to the
ways of border life and we’ve lived through definitely
interesting times in the last 25, 30 years. We’ve saw The Troubles as
we know them come to an end. Which was great, really, to see it end.
There was a lot of life lost unnecessary. There would have been things
ferried across the border innocently, like people would have smuggled
tea, butter, sugar, goods and in the troubled times that would have been worse
than that would have been smuggled across. That could have been weapons and
bombs and guns as did happen. Yeah. And our children now hopefully
will grow up in a land that never knew what it was like to
live through troubled times. Definitely a physical border in a country like Ireland was
never, ever going to work. There are not only roads there,
but whole farms of land and people’s houses are
separated by this border. Lakes even, you see the
border is in the middle. Yeah, so the local land
around here, you have to kind of, to see it, you have
to kind of be there to appreciate it. To the untrained eye you could just
walk across the bridge in Belcoo – Blacklion and not
even notice the difference. I didn’t feel any
different to anyone that lives six miles away
from here. Our accents change. I think realistically that’s the only difference.
Your accent would be slightly different. It’s a little bit different yeah. Everyone is still waving. Yes, exactly. Well that’s what we
see from the bike. It is definitely a good way to
see the country by bicycle. Yeah, yeah, that’s true. That evening Paul’s family brings up some
memories from the time of The Troubles. I was in Belfast one day in the shop,
went up the stairs. A bomb went off down the street
and I was at the bottom of the stairs. Then I just walked up and I went,
“Why the hell did that happen?” And you could hear it outside,
everything just falling around you.
Really? The glass, the windows and everything.
I said, well, okay. And then you went…
I’m still here. Where’s everybody else going? I’ll go that way as well. You just walk past them and you just… But it’s like anything. It becomes a way of life,
not a nice way of life. But it becomes a way of life.
You get used to it. You could hear a bomb
going off and you went, ooh, that’s a big one. Where’s that? Oh, it sounded like it was
the library or the hotel. I wonder what that was. And then everybody would say:
That was a 50-pounder, no a 100-pounder. It definitely was
a 100-pounder. By the sound of it, the bang
and the shake and the rattle. The favourite thing was whenever they
were doing exams to call in a bomb scare. Because they couldn’t
not take it seriously. So the bomb scare was called in
when the exams were going on. Everybody got out
onto the pitch. And now, what did you
get for question 2? And what did you get
for question three? And then you back in 10 minutes later
and everyone was writing down the answers. So they used it to their advantages. I was completely used to that. But it was like that. It was so real. The humor and everything was so real. When we had The Troubles and the crap… you
had that sense of, yeah, right whatever. We know it’s going to be serious. You just went on whenever a bomb
went off and you’re like, okay, I’m still okay, grand. You kind of got used to it. You kind of got a smell to… you always knew
if there was trouble. When I was in Derry, you always
knew something was happening. After hearing so many stories,
it’s finally time to jump on the bikes We climbed to the
Cuilcagh Mountain Park with its Marble Arch Caves. By faith, I chanced to wonder Along your borderland From the Freedom Bridge by Derry walls To Narrow Water Strand But ne’er a place I’ve seen so fair A spot so grand I know As where the linnet softly sings In the shady groves of Boho Just to give you a sense of
where we are. You’re about 60 meters below the
surface of the ground at this point. So that’s the deepest you’re going
to be under the ground today. The deepest point in these caves is
about 94 meters below the surface. Alle these formations here it took thousands of years to be created. It’s like it’s not real, you know? It’s totally crazy. To be honest, I could just stand here for hours and look at all these cool shapes. So this formation got
called the porridge pot. That name came from a fairy tale, and
that name was given to it by local people who were amongst some of the first
to visit these caves back in the early 1980s. Even I have to duck. We arrived at the Florence Court House. It’s a huge domain with a beautiful house. Which was owned by the Earls of Enniskillen. Very powerful family that was, for example, in the
British house of commons So in the time when the British ruled Ireland, yeah, some people were very rich and some people weren’t. Actually, it’s a huge domain and
you’re allowed to cycle here. I haven’t been on any… no…. I don’t think I’ve been in any
places like this where you can just cycle around so It’s hot. Yeah, just relax those muscles. It’s… oooh. Going to sleep soon. The birds are making beautiful songs outside. I think something happened to the road We took a little bit the wrong road Komoot picked this route. Hello? So you went through the river? Yeah. Well, that is a border crossing.. That road was closed. There was a barrier
across that road. I know, I know, yeah. So we didn’t listen, very bad. No, that’s good.
It’s good to see it. You got to see it. You can’t hard believe such a road link
or a river like that would be blocked. Yeah. With a big concrete
bollard right across it. The lengths the Brits went to
try to divide up the country was… Knew no bounds. No. You’re cycling here on the road and suddenly you see this huge yellow digger. It’s called Border Buster and the local people use this to clear the roadblocks off the British during The Troubles. We are meeting Dessie McManus.
He was one of the people involved. Well, you can imagine it’s such a
remote part of the country here for to try to impose a border
was impossible for the Brits. You know, the local people
wouldn’t just have it. Because they’re so used to going
across the border in their daily lives… rather to be shopping or going to the church,
or going to schools, going to anything. You know, every day people
are crossing the border. It’s no difference that side of the river or
this side of the river in people’s minds. And then you got this thing? The local people decided to come
together and purchased this digger here. There were a lot of drivers
willing to drive it. It was often a Sunday afternoon, a lot of people
devoted their Sunday to try to get the roads open. Yeah. Whether it be local farmers, or local
business people who were affected badly by their roads being closed,
or a lot of their customers being cut off. Their natural hinterland. And young people of course. It was
great fun for young people. They took great
enjoyment out of it. There was a great sense of achievement
when they’d get the road open again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you were doing that, the British
didn’t come to you and tried to stop you? Well, you know, no. We tried to get it done at a time that
there would be none around. Or try to make sure that we get
it done before they’d arrive. The thing about it was: they never came
into the area to drop of a hat. Because they always need a lot of backup,
they were afraid of being attacked. So all their operations were planned, they had
to be planned for days or weeks in advance. There was a battle
one time here. There were about
300 or 400 Brits here. They just camped here and
helicopters and everything in. The concrete, the
steel, everything. And they were trying to
dig out this bridge here. And we used to come along and try to put up
a makeshift bridge that people could cross. And they were there with their
massive diggers digging it out. And the boys came down
with this digger. Yeah. And the two diggers were fighting.
It was like something from a dinosaur film with a big
mix of the two diggers. But they were never
able to stop you? Well, no. They were able to do it but we could come back and reopen
it then in the following days. That’s the sort of cat and mouse game that
went on for a long, long time. They never broke the spirit of
the people to keep their roads open. First we thwarted all their plans by shifting all the stuff by hand, but soon the bricks turned into blocks. Great big boulders and humongous rocks. So we bought a digger to clear the way and it stands there to this very day. Proving we’ve no fear and we’d keep our borders clear. So you’re at the border? Yeah. Okay, what does Google Maps say? I just got dry socks on, so I
don’t want to really go again. So we are going to cycle back. But the the border is right here, and I
don’t know where the bridge went. Oh, we love our borders dear. We go there and they come here
for toilet roll and tins of beer. Bargain hunters know no fear The Border Buster is
near Swalinbar, and it’s a very quiet village now, but
it used to be very, very busy. Loads of tourists were coming
here for around 200 years, from Europe, from Britain, because of the spas.
Apparently there’s a lot of sulfur here in the ground. Here behind me is a small
spa and it smells like rotten eggs, but you can
treat rheumatism here. And well, because I have a
form of rheumatism. Let’s see if I can cure it It’s really smelly. It’s like when you are on a volcano. On top of the hill. It’s windy here. Apparently you can
also go here by car. Where can you get the coffee? There’s a coffee bar here, no? No, it’s just… It’s not here. No, there’s no coffee. They should make
a coffee place here. There should be. In the morning you have to pay
with euros and in the afternoon have to pay with pounds. And then later you
have to pay with euros and then with pounds. It’s probably something to do with that
we crossed the border about ten times today. It’s tough It’s like the climbing never stops My muscles hurt, my neck feels terrible Paul is carrying some of my luggage
on his e-bike, but I still have a lot of gear to carry and my violin. That magical water of Swalinbar
apparently didn’t fix me Sometimes I think, why
am I doing this? Why am I asking so much of my body? I wanted to fully
experience these hills without electrical support. Well I got what I asked for. How are we
going to do that? But when I’m at my lowest, there’s always
something special that happens. He goes the whole
way back, look! like this farmer going the whole
way backwards just for us It makes me laugh Makes me realize again why I’m doing this And then, wow, the beauty
of the landscape It’s more intense I’m in it A night of glamping on Crom Estate It’s so quiet here. The castle is actually still owned by an earl. But the estate is open to
people, to visitors, and you can actually sleep here,
so there are cottages and glamping and you can also pitch your tent here. So we’re at the ruins. Did you have a good sleep? I slept
like a log. I had a good sleep. That’s probably why
I’m tired now. Crom Estate was owned by a planter… He had a plantation. Do you know more about
that time of the plantations? Yes, it’s not like
plantations anywhere else. They’re called planters because
they were planted here and the land was confiscated from
the people who originally lived here. That became their plantation. Okay, and there were farmers.. People who originally lived here
were farmers and they were allowed to work for the plantation owners. Yeah, yeah. And then they had to basically give….
– Pay tax. And that was the same in
the other estate we were. That was also a planter, so… They were basically, they took
all the land and then… It is the whole period
of time that Irish people would call the
plantation of Ulster. That’s when these
lands, all these big plantations of lands
were given to lords and ladies or whoever for
favors to the king. Yeah, well, this was a Scottish
one that came here. It was cheaper to pay them with land from Ireland
than to pay them with money from England. So that was the trick. You’re going to do
one of your songs? Yeah.
Which song? This song is called
The Gantries at Our Backs. It’s about a friend of mine whose
father was from Belfast, and they were
living in Dublin. Close, neighbours of ours. And when his father died,
he described going to the funeral of his father in Belfast and he spoke about the gantries
(iconic yellow cranes). Because the gantries of Harland & Wolff
looked down on the Catholic area where his
father grew up. It looked down on Sailortown. And the gantries are called Samson and Goliath.
That’s what this song is about. But it’s about mixed marriages. His parents moved down because, what
we call over here, a mixed marriage. A Catholic married
a Protestant. And in those days, it wasn’t great in Northern
Ireland, so they moved to the South. It’s a song about
crossing the Boyne. I know these narrow northern streets From the photographs that you keep Deep beneath the boxes in the chest With the scarves and shoes
and that old wedding dress Christmas time you’d take
them out to show Visitors just about to go And they’d stop and have
one more for the road And a Jameson’s and red
and tears would flow And I look on with
familiar strangers eyes With the gantries at
our backs I realize Samson and Goliath gazing down Just how much you
love this troubled town The snaps to show the streets and the parades Of Brillcream boys
and lovers like you played And you promised to
mammy you’d be true Even though she wore
orange, you wore blue So you packed up to
take the Dublin train As lovers often did
and will again Knapsack and a suitcase
tied with twine First time you’d
ever crossed the Boyne And I look on with
familiar stranger eyes. With the gantries at at
our back I realize Samson and Goliath
gazing down Just how much you love
this troubled town August we cross the Boyne again. And we’d swap southern sun
for northern rain. And he told us if
things would settle down One day we’d all move
back to Sailortown Even the best
of families fade Despite the plans
young lovers made And your children grew
up far from your home A million miles from
this troubled town But I look up with
familiar strangers eyes With the gantries on our back I realize Samson and Goliath
gazing down Just how much you
love this troubled town That makes me sad. Oh. Mmm. I’m just sad today. It’s a sad day. Yeah. Oh, you just had a nice gluten free
cake, so you should be in top form. Sometimes I get a
bit sad on this (trip). Sometimes I’m very
happy, and sometimes… This is sad weather. It’s sad weather. And we’re in an old ruin. But also sometimes when you
hear the stories, you know? Yeah, we’ve heard a couple
of very sad stories on this trip. Yeah. We certainly have. This is a hard place. I always get more
emotional in Ireland. Do you? Yeah, you get more
ups and more lows. Hmm. I think. It’s also the weather,
but it’s also the kind of life and all the history here. It’s
just all so strong. It’s a living history. If you live in The Netherlands,
everything goes kind of straightforward in one line. And Ireland always feels like this. That’s all the hills you be
going looking down on the back. Yeah, let’s just say that.
It’s the hills.
1 Comment
Thank you both, lovely.