Following in Siobhán McSweeney's footsteps in search of Northern Ireland’s top screen locations
Exploring Northern Ireland with Siobhán McSweeney Thursday 9.00pm More4
Ed Grenby - 20 August 2021
Ping! I check my phone, and it’s Hodor again, sending me another of his charming and effusive text messages, this one recommending a pub where I can hear traditional Irish music just down the road from Poundland. It’s not the real Hodor, of course, but Flip Robinson, who stood in for Game of Thrones’s inarticulate giant when the fantasy blockbuster was being filmed in Northern Ireland. Robinson now leads Game of Thrones tours round the area’s dozens of dramatic shooting locations, combining local knowledge with behind-the-scenes insights (gianttoursireland.com). The province is currently enjoying another turn in the limelight, though – without a load of CGI dragons cluttering up the place. In More4’s Exploring Northern Ireland, Siobhán McSweeney, Great Pottery Throw Down host and Derry Girls scene-stealer, pootles round the province by eBike. “It’s a terrific holiday destination,” she says – and following in her tyre-tracks last month, I was similarly struck.
McSweeney made a splash not 45 minutes from Belfast airport in the first episode, with a spot of “stand-up paddleboarding” on Strangford Lough. (Imagine standing – or, the way it went when I tried it, semi-squatting anxiously – on a giant surfboard, with a single oversized oar.) Not even my flailings could much disturb the serene, hill-fringed beauty of this vast sea loch, though, and the kitten-cute seals, pretty little jellyfish and elegant eider ducks went about their business unbothered, though the latter’s honks may have carried a grace note of derision (strangfordloughactivitycentre.com). The Lough was the main location for James Nesbitt’s Bloodlands; but further down the rolling road you come to the Mourne Mountains, inspiration for a rather more wholesome saga (“my idea of Narnia”, CS Lewis once wrote to his brother). There are strolls on the range’s winsomely sheep-nibbled lower skirts, and hikes on its broodingly handsome higher slopes – though Game ofThrones fans may struggle to leave Strangford, where part of the National Trust’s stately Castle Ward stood in for Winterfell (nationaltrust.org.uk/castle-ward).
The eccentric 18th-century mansion is woven with plenty of fantastic (non-fictional!) stories, too – and plenty more places like it are scattered across Northern Ireland. McSweeney liked it so much she dressed in the chatelaine’s finery and tried to move in, but I felt more at home at Glenarm Castle in Antrim (glenarmcastle.com). Its walled garden must be one of the most decorous in the British Isles; and, because it still belongs to the Earl of Antrim, it feels a bit “freer” than a National Trust property (champagne tea in the main house… gourmet pizza in the stables… glamping pods in the grounds).
Glenarm sits beside Carnlough, arguably the loveliest of the many lovely little fishing villages along the Antrim Coast. They’re interspersed with equally appealing beaches, as soft as the Med’s but with the added drama of great cliffs or dunes behind them. Best of all, they’re linked by the Causeway Coastal Route, which flirts with the shoreline for a full 70-odd miles between the stupendous ancient castles of Dunluce (where Kenneth Branagh shot chunks of 2020’s magical-criminal caper Artemis Fowl) and Carrickfergus (where Chris Pine and Hugh Grant are currently filming Dungeons and Dragons). It’s a delight to drive, but be sure to come off it for the gorgeous Torr Head Scenic Route, which winds among patchwork pastures, bonny farmhouses, fairy-tale cliffs and time-forgotten glens. After an hour or two on those roads, the Giant’s Causeway seems almost an afterthought (nationaltrust.org.uk/giants-causeway).
On her trip McSweeney made the mistake of turning up during the day, when it can feel as if there’s a visitor for every single one of the 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns. But when I arrived (by good luck and bad sat-nav management) at around dusk, the crowds had evaporated like a sea mist, and the setting sun seemed to stretch a beaten-copper carpet out from the Causeway to the horizon. It was inevitable that McSweeney’s travelogue would feature the city that provided her most famous role – and Derry Girls is now such a part of the fabric of the place that it has its own gable-end mural, alongside the Bogside’s Troubles-era wall paintings.
To understand it all, and to get a sense of how the politics impacted on the ordinary people of the city, the best bet is to take a guided tour (derrycitytours.com). And by now you’re due an evening of good beer, among a welcoming crowd with infectious folk music – which can only mean Peadar O’Donnell’s, on bubbling Waterloo Street (facebook.com/Peadarsderry). Tell them Hodor sent you.
Ping! I check my phone, and it’s Hodor again, sending me another of his charming and effusive text messages, this one recommending a pub where I can hear traditional Irish music just down the road from Poundland. It’s not the real Hodor, of course, but Flip Robinson, who stood in for Game of Thrones’s inarticulate giant when the fantasy blockbuster was being filmed in Northern Ireland. Robinson now leads Game of Thrones tours round the area’s dozens of dramatic shooting locations, combining local knowledge with behind-the-scenes insights (gianttoursireland.com). The province is currently enjoying another turn in the limelight, though – without a load of CGI dragons cluttering up the place. In More4’s Exploring Northern Ireland, Siobhán McSweeney, Great Pottery Throw Down host and Derry Girls scene-stealer, pootles round the province by eBike. “It’s a terrific holiday destination,” she says – and following in her tyre-tracks last month, I was similarly struck.
McSweeney made a splash not 45 minutes from Belfast airport in the first episode, with a spot of “stand-up paddleboarding” on Strangford Lough. (Imagine standing – or, the way it went when I tried it, semi-squatting anxiously – on a giant surfboard, with a single oversized oar.) Not even my flailings could much disturb the serene, hill-fringed beauty of this vast sea loch, though, and the kitten-cute seals, pretty little jellyfish and elegant eider ducks went about their business unbothered, though the latter’s honks may have carried a grace note of derision (strangfordloughactivitycentre.com). The Lough was the main location for James Nesbitt’s Bloodlands; but further down the rolling road you come to the Mourne Mountains, inspiration for a rather more wholesome saga (“my idea of Narnia”, CS Lewis once wrote to his brother). There are strolls on the range’s winsomely sheep-nibbled lower skirts, and hikes on its broodingly handsome higher slopes – though Game of Thrones fans may struggle to leave Strangford, where part of the National Trust’s stately Castle Ward stood in for Winterfell (nationaltrust.org.uk/castle-ward).
The eccentric 18th-century mansion is woven with plenty of fantastic (non-fictional!) stories, too – and plenty more places like it are scattered across Northern Ireland. McSweeney liked it so much she dressed in the chatelaine’s finery and tried to move in, but I felt more at home at Glenarm Castle in Antrim (glenarmcastle.com). Its walled garden must be one of the most decorous in the British Isles; and, because it still belongs to the Earl of Antrim, it feels a bit “freer” than a National Trust property (champagne tea in the main house… gourmet pizza in the stables… glamping pods in the grounds).
Glenarm sits beside Carnlough, arguably the loveliest of the many lovely little fishing villages along the Antrim Coast. They’re interspersed with equally appealing beaches, as soft as the Med’s but with the added drama of great cliffs or dunes behind them. Best of all, they’re linked by the Causeway Coastal Route, which flirts with the shoreline for a full 70-odd miles between the stupendous ancient castles of Dunluce (where Kenneth Branagh shot chunks of 2020’s magical-criminal caper Artemis Fowl) and Carrickfergus (where Chris Pine and Hugh Grant are currently filming Dungeons and Dragons). It’s a delight to drive, but be sure to come off it for the gorgeous Torr Head Scenic Route, which winds among patchwork pastures, bonny farmhouses, fairy-tale cliffs and time-forgotten glens. After an hour or two on those roads, the Giant’s Causeway seems almost an afterthought (nationaltrust.org.uk/giants-causeway).
On her trip McSweeney made the mistake of turning up during the day, when it can feel as if there’s a visitor for every single one of the 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns. But when I arrived (by good luck and bad sat-nav management) at around dusk, the crowds had evaporated like a sea mist, and the setting sun seemed to stretch a beaten-copper carpet out from the Causeway to the horizon. It was inevitable that McSweeney’s travelogue would feature the city that provided her most famous role – and Derry Girls is now such a part of the fabric of the place that it has its own gable-end mural, alongside the Bogside’s Troubles-era wall paintings.
To understand it all, and to get a sense of how the politics impacted on the ordinary people of the city, the best bet is to take a guided tour (derrycitytours.com). And by now you’re due an evening of good beer, among a welcoming crowd with infectious folk music – which can only mean Peadar O’Donnell’s, on bubbling Waterloo Street (facebook.com/Peadarsderry). Tell them Hodor sent you.