Coincidence. While looking distractedly for one book, there turns up a volume almost forgotten. It is George A. Birmingham's novel of 1798, The Northern Iron. The coincidence resides in the fact that the climax comes when the young hero returns to his own ground near the Giant's Causeway about which we have heard a thing or two recently. It is not Birmingham's best, perhaps, but who has read his full output? For this cleric (Canon James Owen Hannay of the Church of Ireland) "wrote the first of his sixty novels and collections of stories at the age of forty seven." That's what his publishers tell us. It is a melodramatic love story, but with a charm especially for anyone who knows the district, as in the hero's refuge in the Rock Pigeon's Cave, while his love swims in (a daunting prospect) pushing before her a cork raft bearing such sustainable fodder as "parcels of oatcake, baps, cold meat, butter, cheese, a bottle of wine, a flask of whiskey and water, a package of candles."
Neal Ward is, of course, on the run and eventually escapes to America with his love. His father the Reverend Micah Ward has served time in Fort George and has a book given to him by fellow prisoners of all denomiations expressing gratitude. Only one non-fictional character comes into the story - Jimmy Hope. Neal asks him to come to America, to. "Nay, lad, nay. I was born in Ireland, I've lived my life in Ireland, I'll die in Ireland when my time comes. Maybe before the end I'll find a chance to strike another blow for her."
Back to today. David Laing who, as we saw before, is planning with others to put a steam train on what used to be the last two miles or so of the defunct Giant's Causeway Tram which ran all the way from Portrush, sends an advance copy of their brochure which is a delight to anyone who knows that staggeringly beautiful area, and which should help to produce the remaining funding which the company needs - about a quarter of a million pounds sterling. Their registered office is 23 New Row, Coleraine - and that's in what we here call County Derry. Apart from the magnificence of the Causeway itself, which should humble any reasonable being with its incredible symmetry and asymmetry, this is, in the opinion of more than one person, the part of Ireland with the most bracing air. A fine place for our Government to recognise.