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Belleek Pottery Factory
In July and August 2005, I spent two weeks in Ireland. Most of it was with a tour group via a public radio station, before I stayed at a Dublin hostel for three days. This excerpt is from our stay in Ballyshannon for the Ballyshannon Music Festival.
7/31/2005
Belleek Pottery (Northern Ireland)
In most of Ireland, the city centre is called a Square, but in Donegal County it’s called a diamond.
To visit the Belleek Pottery factory, we crossed the border into Northern Ireland, specifically Fermanagh County. This time I didn’t notice rows and rows of royalist flags. It was a much more pleasant visit than the brief, previous one.
At the pottery factory, we enjoyed a guided tour and watched a film about the factory. The film was decades old and quite dated in a vomitous sexist role models kind of way. I’m sure people regardless of gender can do certain tasks.
After the tour, I purchased a Celtic knotwork vase, inspired by the Book of Kells. The factory has a showroom (where I saw the vase) and a lovely tearoom, where we sat around a circular table and drank tea. I like tearooms and apparently am turning into a serious tea drinker. So much better than beer.
Afterwards, the bus ride was a sort of guided tour thanks to a little kid named Jeff, John’s son…