Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [514]
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WALK: CAVE HILL
Start from the public car park just before the gates of Belfast Castle. Take the path that leads up from the car park. After 150m you’ll reach a horizontal path at a T-junction; go right and follow this trail as it continues uphill through the woods. After about 800m you’ll emerge from the trees beneath Cave Hill’s eastern crags. Fork left beneath the obvious caves that give the hill its name (if you keep straight on here, the path continues north for 1km to the Belfast Zoo car park) and traverse to the north (right) beneath the cliffs then climb up to a shoulder (which can be muddy). The path then doubles back to the south (left) and follows the cliff tops to the summit.
A little bridge and some steps lead up to the summit proper, an Iron Age fort surrounded by crags. There’s a superb view across the city, harbour and lough, with Scrabo Hill and Tower prominent on the eastern horizon, and the rounded forms of the Mourne Mountains far away to the south.
Continue south then west on a broad, well-made trail for almost 1km. At a sharp bend to the right, beside a wooden bench, leave the trail on the left via a stile, and go downhill on a faint path through a field. Pass over another stile at an old quarry and turn left, keeping the quarry on your left. The path then descends more steeply through woods; at a T-junction go left on a better path, which leads to the T-junction above the castle car park; turn right here to finish. (Total distance 5.5km; allow two hours.)
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On the corner of Falls Rd and Sevastopol St is the red-brick Sinn Féin headquarters, with its famous mural of a smiling Bobby Sands, the hunger striker who was elected MP for West Belfast just a few weeks before he died in 1981. The text reads, in Sands’ own words, ‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children’. A few blocks further on, on the right between Waterford St and Springfield Rd, look out for the Ruby Emerald Take-Away at 105 Falls Rd – it was on the pavement outside this shop (known as Clinton’s Hot Food from 1996 to 2003) that the historic handshake between Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and US president Bill Clinton took place in November 1995.
On the left now are the artwork railings of the Royal Victoria Hospital, dating from 1906; it claims to be the world’s first air-conditioned building. Known locally as the RVH, it played an important role in creating the first ever portable defibrillator and, in the 1970s and ’80s, developed a well-earned reputation for expertise in the treatment of gunshot wounds. The wavy form of the railings mimics the structure of DNA – look for the little yellow Xs and Ys for X- and Y-chromosomes – and the portraits (laser-cut in sheet steel) chart the progress of a human life from birth to the age of 100. Just beyond the hospital is the Cultúrlann MacAdam Ó Fiaich Click here.
All along Falls Rd you’ll see Republican murals, as well as memorials in honour of people who have died during the conflict. At Islandbawn St on the right, the Plastic Bullet Mural commemorates the 17 people, including eight children, who were killed by plastic baton rounds (now banned) fired by the security services. Two streets on, on the right, is Beechmount Ave. Look at the street name – a hand-painted sign reads ‘RPG Avenue’. ‘RPG’ stands for ‘rocket-propelled grenade’; the street earned its nickname because it offered a line of sight for IRA rocket attacks on the security forces base in nearby Springfield Rd.
Another 15 minutes of walking will take you past the City Cemetery and Falls Park to Milltown Cemetery where the 1981 hunger strikers are buried. You’ll see green Hs attached to lamp posts (in memory of the H-blocks at the Maze Prison where the hunger strikers were incarcerated); at Hugo St, opposite the City Cemetery, there’s a large mural entitled ‘St James’s Support the Hunger Strikers’.
The Republican plot in Milltown Cemetery is halfway along the southern wall – from the entrance head