When Northern Ireland spoke for Britain - a 1956 advertisement for the British Travel Association

This ad is from the US magazine 'Holiday', for the British Travel Association. The main image is of Greencastle, County Down, on the shore of Carlingford Lough. It's an area with both Viking and Anglo-Norman heritage. It was captured by Edward Bruce in 1316, and is also recorded that his brother King Robert the Bruce of Scotland offered to broker a peace agreement with the King of England - with Greencastle as the proposed venue for the negotiations - around 1326. Edward Bruce was of course killed nearby in a battle in 1318 and his body (or bits of it at least) are buried in an ancient graveyard there.

Greencastle was used as an English garrison in the late Elizabethan period in the 1590s - and it's still an impressive building and location today. Northern Ireland is seldom, if ever, used to promote the wider 'nation' (however you choose to define that), we tend to get pushed to the periphery. How different it was 50 odd years ago. I still believe that our multi-cultural mix makes Northern Ireland one of the most interesting heritage locations in the UK / Ireland. My English relatives were surprised to see so many Anglo-Norman castles in our small area of east Down on a visit last year.

I was fishing for tope on Carlingford just over a year ago with some friends and took the photos below from the boat.





Below: The view from the Irish Sea into the mouth of Carlingford Lough - Co Louth to the left and Co Down to the right.There is some talk about building a bridge across the Lough.