Many trips over many years to Scotland, Wales and, recently, Ireland, deserve to be grouped together, so here we go!
We visited Belfast for a couple of weeks in June and really enjoyed it. I’ve been posting about Belfast on my main blog, so please take a look there. But, I also decided to post a link here.
The latest post is about a fascinating outdoor sculpture called The Big Fish.
I last posted about Mackie’s 19.2, the Mackie Ice Cream Parlour in Aberdeen, where you can sit inside, or out in the enclosed courtyard to enjoy a sweet treat. As the Mackie Ice Cream Parlour says “Look for the Leopard”.
Well, just look up in the courtyard and, standing on a tall pillar is an amazing huge steel sculpture of a large cat in a patterned, mesh effect. It contains thousands of steel fragments individually welded together to create the form of a leopard. The big cat is crouching high up on a perch above the tables and chairs in the courtyard. It’s 18 ft/5.5 m tall, on a 30 ft/10m pole and weighs about 2 tons. Unmissable. It’s called “Poised”, by Andy Scott, installed October 2017. At night the leopard lights up in blue, which must be fun—but we were only there during the day.
Head to Marischal Square to find the leopard.
MACKIE’S 19.2
A couple of years ago Rod and I took our daughter and her family to Scotland as part of a conference trip that Rod had in Aberdeen. Our daughter was really pleased and excited because she’s become more interested in family history and her ancestry. Rod’s full name is Roderick Mackie so, our daughter and son, and their children, are all Mackies too. He and I have known from previous visits to Aberdeen that Mackies still live in or near Aberdeen.
Brief summary of that family history:
Rod’s great grandfather, Archibald Mackie, left Aberdeen sometime in the 1870s and went to Melbourne, Australia. His second son, (and Rod’s grandfather), William Mackie, was born in Adelaide in 1880. Rod’s father, Roderick Archibald Mackie, was born near Brisbane in 1914. William, his wife and two children left Australia in about 1916 and went to Mozambique and then Southern Rhodesia. So, Rod’s father never really knew Australia and was more a southern African. Rod was born in Southern Rhodesia too, and our two children were born in South Africa.
Rod’s mother was also from Scotland. She was a Stuart and, although she lived much of her adult life in Southern Rhodesia, she always maintained many of her Scottish ideas and traditions. So, we were all exposed to Scottish history and ideas through her.
A few years ago, our daughter bought an ancestry.com kit for Rod, and we bought one for her, which got us all very interested in finding out more about their ancestors.
A trip to Scotland is a great way to try and trace family roots and knowing that at least one branch of the Mackie family originated in Aberdeen gave us a good start. And, even better, is that Mackies still live in or around Aberdeen.
On previous visits to Aberdeen and Scotland, Rod and I had tasted Mackie ice cream, Mackie chocolates, and Mackie chips, which are called crisps in UK (all very good, by the way!).
We discovered that the main Mackie ice cream parlour is in Aberdeen so we determined to find it, which we did very easily. It’s at 1 MSq, Marischal Square Courtyard and its name is Mackie’s 19.2.The name comes from the fact that all the ice cream is produced on the family farm in Aberdeenshire, which is exactly 19.2 miles from the parlour. They use milk and cream from their own herd and it’s a “green” and sustainable farm apparently.
It was so exciting to find the Parlour in the indoor Marischal Square, and to sample some of its wares. It offers over 30 rotating ice cream flavors, both traditional and unique, plus waffles, crepes, milkshakes, coffee, chocolates and chips. It’s open every day, from 12pm to 9pm or 10pm depending on the day (check the website). You can sit inside, or in the enclosed courtyard. The ice cream and chocolate were so good that we returned a second time, and hopefully when we visit Aberdeen again in 2027, we can re-visit the Mackie Ice Cream Parlour.
Besides the various Mackie goods for sale, there were a number of posters, with photos of the current Mackie family and some of the history of the Parlour. We would like to follow up on possible leads to Rod’s (and therefore our children’s) family history through that.
There’s a lot of information on the website—about the ice cream, the farm, the history, the family.
We were in Aberdeen a couple of years ago and stayed in a hotel in the main station complex. So, most days we would wander up to the main street in Aberdeen, Union Street—also known as the Granite Mile because of its grand grey stone architecture. Usually we would walk up Shiprow, a narrow street that goes to the wonderful Maritime Museum, not far from Union Street.
We were very happy to see that the Umbrella Project was in full display on Shiprow. We’ve seen Umbrella Projects in other cities, always very bright and colorful, and here the contrast with the grey stone buildings was quite striking. The Project is a way to celebrate neurodiversity and the sign says it all: “The Neurodiversity Project is an uplifting visual representation of all the different minds we have here in the UK”.
Many years ago I was a psychologist, and our daughter is a social worker and nurse so we know about neurodiversity and believe it should be celebrated, not feared. I’m not sure if the Project is still in Aberdeen, as it seems to be a traveling project, but it’s always good to see it.
PS. That’s our daughter and granddaughter under the umbrellas
Wherever we travel we are on the lookout for street art of any kind—-murals, outdoor statues, garden installations, paintings, graffiti, sculptures, sidewalk chalk art, to name some of the most obvious.
This street art, or public art, is an independent (and free) visual art form and a great way for artists to beautify an urban environment without people having to visit a museum. It’s also a way for artists to express social and political issues. Probably the most common type of street art is graffiti, which is word and symbol-based, often spray-painted and made with stencils. We see this on buildings, on train cars, in railway underpasses etc. But, we’ve also seen many lovely murals, which are image-based and tell a story. Often the art, especially graffiti, is done illegally but we’ve found that many of the other forms of urban art are commissioned by the city or town they are in. Because some of them are illegal they may be ephemeral as the city might remove them. So, some of the photos we’ve taken over the years in different cities could well be of some art that now no longer exists.
Here is a selection of interesting street art that we came across in Aberdeen, Scotland, during two visits. Until we return in a couple of years (summer 2027) I can’t be sure that they all still exist, but they are all fun anyway. Except for the one interior sculpture, we couldn’t find any plaques with information about the artist or the name of the piece. So, it’s open to interpretation!
The last time we were in Dublin and Ireland we had a child with us in our family group. So, we decided that a visit to the Guinness Storehouse was probably not suitable, even though Ireland is famous for Guinness beer, and a visit to the Guinness Storehouse is very popular. Oh well, that just gives us another reason to return to this lovely country!
A couple of our group members tried Guinness beer a few times and were very happy. They said it seemed to taste better in Ireland. This is likely true as they have fresh ingredients, especially the locally-sourced water, and the fresh beer moves quickly through kegs in Irish pubs. Plus, it’s generally believed that any beer is best consumed as close to its source as possible.
We discovered that the Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London, closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin. An interesting factoid is that, besides Ireland, Great Britain has the highest Guinness consumption, but another nation has rivalled that: Nigeria, of all places!
Google tells us that “Nigeria is the world’s second-largest consumer of Guinness beer, only surpassed by the United Kingdom. Guinness has been brewed in Nigeria since 1962, and the local version, a richer and less bitter Foreign Extra Stout made with maize and sorghum, is very popular and considered by some to be a national identity”
Every pub we visited seemed to have posters and ads for Guinness—many still up from years ago—and we tried to photograph some of them. Apparently, Guinness can solve many problems!
Still so many unanswered questions
We took a lot of photos of this remarkable site, so please be patient and scroll through!
When we were in Dublin, we knew we wanted to visit New Grange and Knowth, both part of the Bru Na Boinne. It’s a very popular day-trip and it’s necessary to have pre-booked timed tickets. Nath had bought tickets a month before (for each day of visiting, the pre-booking opens up a month before and the tickets sell out quickly), luckily because there’s no way you’d get in otherwise. She also organized a taxi/Uber on her special app called Freenow (EU version of Uber) that drove us in about 40 minutes to the Visitors’ Center.
The day tour is in three parts: first, at the Visitors’ Center; second, to Knowth; and third to Newgrange, before returning back to the Visitors’ Center. There is a third site called Dowth, which is not part of the tour.
First, we need some background to understand why these spectacular pre-historic passage tombs were built here around 5,000 years ago. These ceremonial structures are among the most important Neolithic sites in the world and contain the largest collection of megalithic art in western Europe. The River Boyne is one of Ireland’s great rivers, flowing from central Ireland to the Irish Sea at the medieval town of Drogheda. From earliest times the river was used as a highway inland as well as providing a lot of what the Neolithic people of the times needed to survive.
About 16 km (10 miles) before the river reaches the sea, it meets high ground and makes a sharp turn to the south. It makes a huge bend or curve as it returns to its original course. At the end of the bend anther smaller river also flowing east joins the Boyne, creating what is almost an island. The area in the curve is Bru na Boinne (in English, the mansion of the Boyne). Because rivers were thought to be deities and because of the island-like status of the higher ground, the Neolithic people chose this to be a special place. They cleared much of the forest and created this sacred landscape where they built their temples and tombs.
The Visitors’ Center (in Bru Na Boinne) is really well done—it’s a series of circular structures (that mimic the ancient mound structures of the site), with a great exhibition with many information boards, lights, a simulated forest walk, and a movie of possible Neolithic life. The Brambles Café there has a good selection of lunch ideas and snacks plus all kinds of drinks. We had an early lunch there, which was really tasty. There’s also a large museum shop.
You then walk on a boardwalk through a bit of forest and over the River Boyne to catch a special shuttle bus that takes people at their allocated time to Knowth first. Each bus has a guide—ours was Yvonne, who was excellent and gave us a lot of information about the sites and the history of the buildings and the peoples of the times. But, the main message is that excavations continue and there are new theories and discoveries, so much of the site is still a mystery.
We wandered around the outside of the main mound, taking note of the smaller, or satellite, mounds. The tour doesn’t go into the big mound, but it is possible to climb steps to the top outside.
Knowth is billed as the “greatest building of the Irish and European Stone Age” and it could well be true. Archaeologists had always thought that the huge grass-covered mound at Knowth, close to the River Boyne, was not a natural feature and was probably linked to the famous nearby Neolithic tomb of New Grange. Built over 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic (New Stone Age), Knowth for several hundred years was the greatest building in the world (it predates the pyramids of Egypt), and for 4,000 years it was the biggest building in Ireland. Excavations started in 1941 and continued for many decades, and it’s been determined that Knowth served as a burial place, a place of pilgrimage, a temple, a Christian meeting place, and a religious statement in stone. For many hundreds of years it was also a home, and a place of refuge and defense.
The place name Knowth is an anglicized version of “Cnogba”. In Irish mythology, Cnogba or Cnoc Bui is “the home or hill of the goddess Bui, consort of Lugh.” Knowth consists of an enormous passage-tomb mound and smaller satellite tombs. There are the remains of 17 satellite tombs and evidence of three more. All the satellite tombs were partially destroyed in the Early Christian era, but enough remained so they have been reconstructed. All the mounds, large and small, are constructed with hundreds of large stones (mostly a sandstone called Greywacke) and how the peoples of the time quarried and moved them up the hill to the site will probably never be completely known.
Typical Irish passage-tombs, like Knowth and New Grange, have several common features. This diagram shows them. The mound, tumulus or cairn was the outer covering of the tomb. It was usually made of small stones but for large passage-tombs (such as Knowth) it could be constructed of soil and stone in alternating layers. The passage, inside the mound, leading to the chamber can vary in length and height, but can always accommodate an adult. The chamber also varies in size. It sometimes had a basin stone, used for cremated remains and grave goods. The outside kerb, made of large kerbstones, defined the size and shape of the passage-tomb.Orthostats, large upright stones, were used to build the passage and chamber. The weight of the roof is supported by these stones, so they were chosen for their strength and shape. Part of each orthostat was buried in a trench and back-filled with stones for support.
Knowth has two passages, the Western passage and the longer Eastern passage, which do not connect but it is possible to hear the voices of people standing in the other chamber through the 5m (about 16.5 feet) of rock that separate the two tombs. It is not known if this has any ritual significance. A small wooden henge monument stood near the entrance to the Eastern passage, signifying that the builders believed that this was a sacred place. Today there is a modern reconstruction of the henge.
A notable feature at Knowth is that many of the kerbstones and orthostats, as well as stone basins and maceheads, are decorated with inscriptions. There were 127 kerbstones and only 3 are missing. Of the 127, 90 had some decoration, more than any other passage tomb in Ireland or Europe. This carved art is very famous, and was one of the highlights for us. There are 11 different motifs that fall into two main groups; curvilinear (circles, spirals, radials, serpentine forms), and rectilinear (parallel lines, chevrons and zigzags). Interpretations of these carvings still remain a mystery, although there have been many theories.
We were able to see a number of decorated stones, plus just outside the site is a small exhibit with many photos and diagrams of the symbols.
We then got back onto the shuttle and drove to Newgrange. The main mound is enormous. It too was built more than 5,000 years ago, but over time it fell into disuse and the mound was covered in grass. About 300 years ago it was rediscovered by a local farmer, who realized it was something very important. A Welsh antiquarian, Edward Lhwyd, of the time came to visit and recorded what he saw, describing it as “some place of sacrifice of the ancient Irish.” In 1962 the state bought New Grange and serious excavations began under professor Michael O’Kelly and his wife Claire O’Kelly, both archeologists. Their greatest achievement was discovering that the passage and chamber of New Grange aligns with the rising sun on the morning of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. On December 21st, 1967, Professor O’Kelly was the first person in thousands of years to witness the sun entering this ancient building. For 17 minutes a thin beam of golden sunlight penetrates a specially constructed aperture called the roof-box, travels all along the passage and illuminates the darkness of the chamber of Newgrange. To achieve this, those early builders needed to know where the sun rose on the other side of the valley on the winter solstice, and align it with both where the front of the passage and the back of the chamber would be. For this alignment to work, it was important that no other light could enter the chamber at any other time, so they had to figure out the length and shape (it has slight curves) of the passage. The mind boggles at what those ancient astronomers must have known!
Like Knowth, Newgrange was constructed with many special stones, many also decorated, and it was also a temple, a tomb, a monument, a place for special ceremonies, such as funerals. It also has three smaller satellite passage-tombs.
Our tickets allowed us to enter the passage and go into the chamber, a few people at a time. No backpacks or large bags are permitted, as the passage is very narrow and needs to be protected. No photos are allowed inside.
At the end of the visit, we hopped back on the shuttle to the Visitors’ Center, where we refreshed with tea and a snack at the café before heading back to Dublin.
The whole experience was truly remarkable and very thought-provoking. We left wanting to know more about those early peoples, and what they thought and believed. We also realized that the amount of work that went into building these massive structures is almost unimaginable.
Loch Ness Pub
Recently, I was trying to go through and organize some of our many thousands of photos taken on many trips over the years. I came across some lovely photos of old downtown Blois on the Loire River. We wandered along narrow old streets lined with half-timbered houses, many now housing small shops, bars and restaurants.
We saw intricate carvings on the wooden beams of half-timbered houses—-the carvings are called timber frame carvings. They can tell stories about the history, folklore, and residents of the town. We also noticed many very distinctive window and door frames, which seems to be the case in so many French towns and villages. (Photos of windows and doors is another theme of ours!).
But, what really caught our attention was a pub. It’s billed as an Irish pub but the name is Scottish, Loch Ness Pub. Nessie, the famous Loch Ness Monster, has an allure across cultures—we are in France, in front of an Irish pub with a Scottish name! That’s quite a cultural mix!
We didn’t go in, so I can’t report on the food or drinks, but I now wish that we had. I checked online and it seems to still exist, with the same phone number.
Le Loch Ness, 7 rue Juifs, Blois.
Our family surname is Mackie, as my husband’s father’s family was descended from the Mackies of Aberdeen, Scotland. But, he has double Scottish ancestry because his mother was a Stuart from Edinburgh. She was very proud of her ancestry and told many tales about Bonnie Prince Charlie and Mary Stuart aka Mary Queen of Scots.
So, imagine our surprise when we came across reference to Stuarts in Brittany (Bretagne). We knew that the Stuarts had a French connection (and that was also played up in the popular series “Outlander”), but had thought it was more in the ports and in Paris.
We were spending a week in Brittany, based in a small town near St Malo, and did many day trips, one of which was to the town of Dol-de-Bretagne, after visiting the nearby Menhir du Champ-Dolent. Dol-de-Bretagne is best known for the Gothic Cathedral de St-Samson, but is also a pretty town to wander in, with an old cobblestone main street, and many places to eat. The town has done a good job of explaining the various old buildings and attractions with numbered information boards, with great explanations and pictures. They’re all grouped under the heading “Dol la Mystérieurse”, I guess with the aim of piquing visitors’ interest.
We read a couple and then came on #22, titled The Stuarts High Street. That really got our attention—Stuarts in Dol! And just beyond the board was a narrow alley called Passage des Stuarts.
This is the board, which says: “Why is it called Stuarts? The Stuarts gave their name to a royal dynasty who reigned over Scotland between 1371 and 1714 and also over England, Ireland and Wales from 1603 until 1714.
Walter, the founder of this house, born in the Fitzalan family, was the great-grandson of Alan Dapifer, Dol seneschal and a noble Briton who was said to have fought at the battle of Hastings (1066). The Fitzalan family (an anglicized family name derived from the French Fils-Alain or Fitz-Alain) was a family belonging to the Anglo-Norman barony with a Breton origin.
Walter Fitzalan (around 1110-1177) served King David 1st of Scotland. Then he became grand royal seneschal (Stewart of Scotland: most senior member in charge of servants, officer in the King’s service). When he died, in 1177, the title Stewart passed from father to son and gradually became a French family name: Stuart.
In remembrance and in honour of the Dol seneschal and the origins of the Stuart family, Dol high street was named ‘Grande rue des Stuarts’ the 10th September 1967.”
Their original coat-of-arms was a yellow background with a blue-and-white checkered band (see on the board), colors now in the flags on the street here. The board also has a picture of Marie Stuart.
How exciting to find a story about Stuarts in this corner of Brittany!
As most people probably know by now, we love all kinds of street art and actively seek it out when we travel. Sometimes it’s quite hard to find out who the artist is, or what its story is. But this one in Glasgow was relatively easy to pinpoint and it’s linked to the history and legends of Glasgow, so we were very happy to find it.
It’s a huge mural on the gable end of a building on High Street, just down the road from the Glasgow Cathedral. It’s a modern-day version of St. Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow, holding a robin in his hand. St. Mungo’s body now lies in the crypt of the cathedral. The mural is called “The Bird that Never Flew” by Australia artist SMUG in 2016.
So, who was St. Mungo?
St. Mungo started life as Saint Kentigern. He was born in the early 6th century in Culross in Fife (also famous in the series “Outlander”), illegitimate son of Urien, Prince of Cumbria, and Thenew, daughter of the King of Lothian. He trained as a priest at the Monastery of Saint Serf in Culross, where he was renamed Mungo, meaning “dear friend”, by Saint Serf. Mungo finished his training around 550AD and visited the home of a dying holy man, called Fergus, who died that night. Mungo put the body on a cart yoked to two wild bulls and commanded them to take it to a place ordained by The Lord. They stopped at a place known as Cathures and Mungo buried Fergus.
Mungo named the spot “Glasgui” which means “dear green place” and established a church on the site, which is now occupied by Glasgow Cathedral. He is credited with bringing Christianity to Glasgow, and also traveled widely in northern England and northern Wales. Mungo died in the early 600s after living a holy and austere life, but the exact date seems uncertain: I’ve seen 603Ad and 612AD. He was canonized, becoming the patron saint of Glasgow, with a feast day on January 13th.
The link to the bird is apparently this: Saint Serf, Mungo’s old master, tamed a wild robin. It was accidentally killed by some of his disciples who blamed Saint Mungo. Mungo took the dead bird in his hands and prayed over it. It was restored to life and flew chirping to its new master.
This famous bird appears on the city of Glasgow’s coat-of-arms, or Armorial Insignia, along with other features that almost never did something: the tree that never grew, the fish that never swam, and the bell that never rang. There have been many versions of the arms over hundreds of years, the newest being in April 1996.
The verse goes:
“Here is the bird that never flew
Here is the tree that never grew
Here is the bell that never rang
Here is the fish that never swam”.
The tree, the bell and the fish also have an interesting complicated story, which I won’t cover now. But, I’m still not quite sure while they all ‘never did something’.
It’s such fun to find out how much history there is in Scotland, and how much of it is inter-twined.
Celtic Connections and Travels 