History Shorts: snippets of local history

The Maritime Mile is a heritage trail alongside the River Lagan in Belfast, connecting key sites from the city’s seafaring and shipbuilding past with striking public art and storytelling, culminating in the Titanic Quarter, home to Titanic Belfast and a host of other historic attractions. Another eye-catching feature is the Glass of Thrones trail – a series of stained-glass panels celebrating the fantasy series filmed in nearby Titanic Studios. Here is the Stark Window, with its vivid imagery of direwolves, northern landscapes, tragedy and battle - a dramatic tribute and a popular photo stop. The Stark window with Titanic Belfast in the background Nearby on Donegall Quay, a public space opposite the Custom House blends historic and contemporary Belfast. A red buoy—once used in Belfast Lough— is repurposed here as public art, while the Salmon of Knowledge sculpture (better known as the Big Fish) stands where the hidden Farset River flows into the Lagan, telling the story of Belfas...

My first encounter with the Tandragee stone idol was with a replica in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. Replica in Ulster Museum (author's photo, all rights reserved) This curious little figure probably caught my eye because of its name, Tandragee being the village best known as the Northern Irish home of Tayto potato crisps. Peering at the figure a little more closely it seemed to be clutching its left arm (so I thought) with what looked like a smile, sitting beside another stone figure of a bear-like animal. I was astonished to discover that the original Tandragee idol wasn’t in another museum but had a much more unlikely home. Beneath a plaque commemorating a late 19th century archbishop of Ireland, worshippers and visitors to St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral in Armagh can see the Tandragee idol in all its glory sitting on a low stone plinth in a side aisle. The cathedral houses other pre-Christian idols in its crypt (judging by photos on Flickr, these have also been on dis...