BOB HIND begins a marathon bus journey around the island of Ireland, starting at Belfast Aldergrove International Airport.
Idon’t know why I have made so few trips to Ireland over the years despite it being ‘next door’, and despite my wife’s colourful Irish heritage but here, at last, I am going to attempt a journey around the full island, north and south, all 2,000 miles of it.
My original schedule was made prepandemic, but I learned more about Irish public transport during my re-planning and was excited by the prospects of nine days of travel. At least, until 11 days prior when I received an email from Translink, the publicly-owned corporation responsible for public transport in Northern Ireland, warning of ‘potential strike action’ by bus drivers for seven days. The final day of this was to be my first day on the island.
I was planning to fly into Belfast International airport from Liverpool, from where the only transport link into Belfast city centre is Translink service 300. The last time I used the half-hourly 300, always a double-decker, it was crammed. The good news was that the strike did not affect Northern Ireland Railways and a train 84 minutes after I was due to land looked like a solu…
