BULGARIA HOLIDAYS part 4
In 2007 a total of 5,200,000 tourists visited Bulgaria, making it the 39th most popular destination in the world. Tourists from Greece, Romania and Germany account for 40% of visitors.Significant numbers of British (+300,000), Russian (+200,000), Serbian (+150,000), Polish (+130,000) and Danish (+100,000) tourists also visit Bulgaria.
Main destinations include the capital Sofia, coastal resorts like Albena, Sozopol, Nesebar, Golden Sands and Sunny Beach; and winter resorts such as Pamporovo, Chepelare, Borovetz and Bansko. The rural tourist destinations of Arbanasi and Bozhentsi offer well-preserved ethnographic traditions. Other popular attractions include the 10th century Rila Monastery and the 19th century Euxinograd château.
Castleward
Castleward is a beautiful Northern Irish house on the shores of Strangford Lough, Co Down. It's full of history and surrounded by lovely gardens and walks along the lough.
St Andrews Golf Accommodation - Braeside House Bed and Breakfast In The Home Of Golf
Stay at when you next visit St Andrews.
Enjoy this wonderful bed and breakfast during your golf holiday in the home of golf : St Andrews.
Braeside House offers quality en-suite Bed and Breakfast in St Andrews - the home of golf. We are ideally located just 5 minutes walk from the town centre and 10 minutes walk from the historic Old Course.
We offer three attractive tastefully presented en-suite guest bedrooms and a range of guest facilities including on site parking (difficult to find in St. Andrews) and free wireless internet
Our location is the perfect setting for a short break or a longer stay on Scotland's sunny east coast. Explore two of Britain's best quality beaches, the award winning St Andrews West Sands beach and the superb St Andrews East Sands.
Braeside House is a beautifully appointed and recently refurbished family home offering high quality, comfortable accommodation and exceptional hospitality.
Our guests are all special people and are very welcome in our home. We are pleased to help them make the most of their visit to our beautiful historic town of St Andrews, whether it's a round of golf on the world famous courses or , visiting sons or daughters at the St Andrews University, or simply touring the attractions of Scotland.
I hope you are already excited about your trip to the Home of Golf. It truly is a magic place and I can certainly recommend the best courses to play and how to best to apply for a tee time on the Old Course.
Clandeyboye O'Neill Inauguration Stone Chair Ulster Museum
We are in the Saints and Scholars section of the Ulster Museum Belfast. This section contains a lot of medieval Irish history/antiquities.
We are here to find and film the ancient Clandeboye O'Neill inauguration Stone chair made from one complete piece of sandstone that probably was originaly quarried from near Cultra Bangor. I believe that this special 'crowning' chair was dug out of the field in 1750 at Castlreagh where we believe that Con O'Neill's Grey Castle stronghold fort/castle was sited. The chair itself is lob-sided and doesn't look very comfortable but it does remain unlike the Tyrone O'Neill 'chair' from Tullaghoge which was smashed up in 1605 by Lord Mountjoy. This curious but very special chair would have held great symbolic resonance to people of the time.
'The Clandeboye O'Neills were a branch of the O'Neills of Tyrone who settled in south Antrim and north Down in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in what had been the Anglo-Norman earldom of Ulster. The name Clandeboye, or Clann Aodh Buide, refers to their descent from Aodh Buidhe, or Hugh the Yellow-Haired, who died in 1283. Their chair may have been modelled on that at Tullaghogue, on which the O'Neills of Tyrone were inaugurated, and is the only surviving example of its kind. The Clandeboye O'Neills lost their independence with the rest of Gaelic Ulster as a result of the Nine Year's war. But the family survived, and in 1680 Cormac mac Airt Oig O'Neill sponsored the compilation of Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, the Book of Clandeboye, a manuscript collection of O'Neill genealogies and praise poems.'
'Con O'Neill, head of the Clandeboye O'Neills, is a fascinating character. He was the last of the great clan to own the massive areas of Upper Clandeboye, Lower Clandeboye and the Great Ards - which stretched from almost Ballymena to Killyleagh and included the whole of north Down and the Ards Peninsula.
Con's lifetime saw the end of old medieval Anglo/Irish Ireland and the emergence of a new modern Ulster with Scotland at the centre of Ulster's development. During his latter years Con moved from his grand castle of Castle Reagh to Ballylenaghan / Knockbracken (around 1608), and then to the lower tip of the Ards Peninsula to the remote townland of Tullycarnan (around 1616). Con died around 1618, and was said to have been buried at the old church of Knockcolumbkille, which was situated in what is now Glenmachan or Garnerville in east Belfast.
Con O'Neill bridge and the Connswater Greenway
Around 1606 when anything that's useful began, Ballyhackamore was acquired by Sir James Hamilton from Con O'Neill. As was Ballymacarrett. The maps which Thomas Raven drew for Hamilton, for both places and many more, are held at North Down Museum. Slightly south, the townland of Ballyrushboy was given by Con O'Neill to Thomas Montgomery, the man who had carried out Con's dramatic jailbreak from Carrickfergus. And slightly further south again, up in the hills that overlook east Belfast, was Con's home castle of Castle Reagh. The castle is long gone now, but the Presbyterian church (first built in 1650) is said to be pretty close to where the castle once was. Today all of this area is urban East Belfast, packed with rows of houses, shops, small businesses, schools, churches and factories. However, not all of the history has gone. Along the Beersbridge Road, tucked in between Elmgrove Primary School and the local Elim Pentecostal Church, still stands Con O'Neill's bridge.
If you do a search on this blog for Con O'Neill you'll find out lots about him, which I'll not repeat here. He gave the river, Connswater its name (which of course is a common Scottish naming form for rivers, ie Conn's Water), which centuries later (1984 to be precise) became the name of the main local shopping centre (or 'mall' for US readers!). Notes on con O' Neill are lifted from the Mark Thompson Blog ( )
Tour of Ballygally Castle in Northern Ireland
Tour of Ballygally Castle in Northern Ireland
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C S Lewis parents grave Belfast City Cemetery
Here lie the parents of famous Belfast author C S Lewis of Little Lea Strandtown Belfast
Saul church, site of St Patrick's first barn church
Found around 2 miles from Downpatrick in scenic rolling drumlin country near to the Slaney river where Patrick is said to have first landed to begin his preaching ministry to Ireland.