Note: Portrush is a peninsuala town on the north coast of Northern Ireland, in close proxcimity to the Giant's Causeway: the consequence of a volcanic eruption that took place some 60 million years ago. This year, in July, this small town will host the oldest golf tournament in the world. The prize, the Claret Jug.
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CORMAC SAYS: Yesterday I went on a virtual tour of Portrush using Google view. I started at the Health Centre, went across station square and down Kerr Street past the harbour with its iconic lifeboat gleaming in the sunlight, and up the hill and down to Lansdowne Crescent car park via the Recreation Grounds. Getting myself in a muddle, I came back around the harbour up Lower Main Street along Main Street and up to the Station and down towards the Coleraine Road, before turning along Croc Na Mac. Interestingly, I travelled along Crock Na Mac on the wrog side of the Road with the result that the car in fron of me kept going backwards until I was able to turn so as to go up Causeway Street. Almost at the top of Causeway Street men in Orange high vis, were spreading fresh tarmac from the back of a tipped up truck. And here's the point.
Everywhere I went there were men at work, or evidence of work in progress, even if no one was about. At the Recreation Grounds there appeared to be what looked like palets of bricks, or flagstones. A hole in the Road on Lansdowne car park. Serious workings in front of the Almada Hotel and all the way up Main Street, to say nothing of the rebuilding going on at the Railway Station.
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CORMAC SAYS: Yesterday I went on a virtual tour of Portrush using Google view. I started at the Health Centre, went across station square and down Kerr Street past the harbour with its iconic lifeboat gleaming in the sunlight, and up the hill and down to Lansdowne Crescent car park via the Recreation Grounds. Getting myself in a muddle, I came back around the harbour up Lower Main Street along Main Street and up to the Station and down towards the Coleraine Road, before turning along Croc Na Mac. Interestingly, I travelled along Crock Na Mac on the wrog side of the Road with the result that the car in fron of me kept going backwards until I was able to turn so as to go up Causeway Street. Almost at the top of Causeway Street men in Orange high vis, were spreading fresh tarmac from the back of a tipped up truck. And here's the point.
Everywhere I went there were men at work, or evidence of work in progress, even if no one was about. At the Recreation Grounds there appeared to be what looked like palets of bricks, or flagstones. A hole in the Road on Lansdowne car park. Serious workings in front of the Almada Hotel and all the way up Main Street, to say nothing of the rebuilding going on at the Railway Station.
Years ago I complained about the Station Clock GOING! after twenty years of idleness, and lamented the fact that it took a lesser golf tournament to get it going. Later, I discovered that the people who own the station, don't own the "station Clock."
So why the "spit and polish?" Well for the first time in 68 years, one of the worlds greatest golf tournaments, (the oldest in fact,) is returning to the Royal Portrush Golf Links in July. The competitors will be so busy fighting for the Claret Jug that they won't have time to notice the stunning setting, but the rest of the world will see it, and ho[efully be in awe of it, on TV.
Now one of the splendours of Portrush in the past was Lansdowne Crescent, and 68 years ago when the tournament was last in town, the Edwardian guest houses that faced the sea across an expanse of manacured lawn, were packed with holidaymakers.
On my Google tour I wasn't able to see if anything has changed since I wrote avbout the delapidated and still decaying state of these Edwardian houses, where you could see from the upstairs windows of one house through to the sky, etc, etc, Could it be, that as Lansdowne Crescent, (in the context of the golf) is off the beaten track, the Crescent is still in a state of weeping and lamentation.
I wonder!
And if you want to know, in the context of Portrush, what weeping and lamentation looks like, read my blog ROOTS: In Google, type in Cormac E McCloskey, Blog, Roots, and before you start reading, you will see a lovely picture of the Arcadia at sunrise.
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© Cormac E McCloskey
CORMAC SYS is a feature on my Facebook page.
© Cormac E McCloskey
CORMAC SYS is a feature on my Facebook page.
