Travel: Northern Ireland

ROUNDING a bend on the A2 coastal road from Belfast to the Giant’s Causeway there is a Thelma and Louise moment when the hire car seems to hang over a sickening drop and the whole of the Antrim coastline of chalky white cliffs and lush green icing, blazing blue sea and sky is laid out beyond and behind us.

“Awesome,” grunts someone from the back seat as we reclaim our stomachs, whoosh down the hill and on with our journey through the coastal villages of Glenarm and Cushendun to Carrickfergus, where the marching season bunting flaps in a strong breeze. To my youngest child, it looks like any seaside town; to the more aware teenagers, the logos on the flags speak of a country still dealing with its recent past. How do you explain sectarianism to children? That is still to come, but for now we are headed for the  Giant’s Causeway, a school geography curriculum staple, as we speed along the 80-mile causeway coastal route.

Worth a slight detour on the way is Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, a plank and parallel rope affair that swings 24  metres across a churning gorge and bounces when you walk. Built by fishermen so they could catch the migrating Atlantic salmon, it requires a stout shoe and calm nerve. It turns out I have neither as I try and fail to hang on to the collars of all three of my children at once.

Embarrassment over, we head for the Causeway and its new £18.5 million visitor facilities, designed to complement the landscape of the World Heritage Site. Further development of a holiday resort, including a 120-bed hotel, clubhouse, golf academy and 75 self-catered lodges and shops at nearby Runkerry is in the pipeline and it remains to be seen whether the need to expand visitor infrastructure strikes the right balance between development and protection of this wild and spectacular place.

As we scramble and slide over what felt like every one of the 40,000 hexagonal basalt column outcrops formed 60 million years ago by shrinking lava from an ancient volcanic eruption, I tell my children the Causeway legend. The blarney goes that the Irish giant Finn McCool started to build a causeway of rocks to get to the Scottish giant Bennadonner, but being a bit slight in  giant terms, fell asleep exhausted. Meanwhile, Bennadonner had set off from Scotland and discovered the sleeping Finn, covered in a coat by his wife who told the huge Scottish giant to leave her ‘baby’ alone. So scared was he at the prospect of meeting the dad, he ran back to Scotland, destroying the path he had built and leaving just Finn’s Giant’s Causeway. Nearing the end, I realise I’m warbling to myself and my charges have gazelled off to check out the columns. Is that one of mine waving from the top of the highest, almost 12 metres up? Probably.

Along with a hotel, shop, information centre, café and toilets, the new facilities include a shuttle bus every 15 minutes, but I figure why wait in a massive queue of whining people nursing sprained ankles when we could enjoy a bracing half-mile walk in the drizzle? An unpopular decision as it turns out.

Chilled to the bone but exhilarated, we pile in the car and head for the Bushmills Inn, an old coach house dating back to the 17th century. Recently redeveloped with boutique-style rooms and a cinema, it’s a long putt away from Royal Portrush, the famous links course where the Irish Open was played this summer when it returned to Northern Ireland after a break of 60 years. Inside peat smoke from the roaring inglenook fires infuse every nook and cranny and bring blue fingers and toes back to life, aided by superior fish and chips in the AA rosette restaurant. If you stay, ask to see the secret library and  haunted room – if you dare.

Next day we are up early for the black taxi tour that is on my teenagers’ must-do list. History is given a personal slant as the driver explains his experience of growing up and living through the Troubles and stops to explain the murals along the way. The older children learn about Thatcher and the hunger strikers, ceasefires and moves towards reconciliation, while the youngest  focuses on the striking artwork on the gable ends of the terraced houses.

It’s not all blood and bullets, as the 1km long barbed wire-topped Peace Wall that separates the Falls from the Shankill is the canvas for an annual graffiti-fest where international artists tag a dayglo explosion of love and peace among the red brick and concrete.

Returning to the city centre, the taxi drops us back at our base, the Hilton Hotel. Located on the River Lagan, next to the Waterfront Hall, the Hilton is a hit with the children on account of its room service, Cable’s restaurant, flatscreen TVs, vast breakfast buffet with Ulster fry-ups and access to the Executive Lounge, where there are complimentary refreshments and treats to keep them topped up between snacks. For me it is the views of the mountains from our 12th-floor windows. That and the fact it is a ten-minute walk over the bridge to the Titanic Experience next morning.

They’ve all ‘done’ it at school, but nothing brings home the story of the most famous ship since Noah’s Ark like Titanic Belfast. Right in the heart of the city on the site where she was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard, the skyline-defining six-floor building takes the visitor from conception through to disaster and the ship and Belfast’s place in history.

The latest word in interactive, there are 3D animations, a virtual ride, full-scale reconstructions, live  underwater film of the wreck from  Robert Ballard’s Nautilus exploration vessel, plus artefacts as the city replaces a sense of shame with pride.

At one point my youngest slumps on a bench overwhelmed, and I sense a looming iceberg of whingeing, but it’s averted when the local woman resting next to her tells her about her grand-father, one of the ship’s medics, and  history becomes small, personal and immediate.

Northern Ireland may be a land of  giants, from Samson and Goliath –  the twin cranes towering over  Belfast’s shipyards – to Finn McCool, George Best and the grandest ocean liner ever built. But it’s also the ideal place to keep your little people happy too.

Edinburgh to Belfast with Flybe, from £72 return (www.flybe.com)

Hilton Hotel, 4 Lanyon Place, Belfast (028 9027 7203, www.hilton.co.uk/belfast)

The Bushmills Inn, Bushmills, Country Antrim, rooms from £188 (www.bushmillsinn.com)

Taxi tours (www.gotobelfast.com/tours)

Titanic Belfast, adults £13.50/concessions £9.50/families £34 (www.titanicbelfast.com)

Northern Ireland Tourist Board (www.nitb.com, www.discoverireland.com)

Dooley Car Rentals (028 9445 2522)