So many things in this unfortunate country are symbolic.
‘I always saw this as the start of a road to a United Ireland,’ said my friend and companion, pointing with his tripod towards Anglesey Mountain on the other shore of The Lough. (AND just how did this hill come by this foreign name, does anyone know?).
I could see his point. This pier, built on massive boulders, juts out from Warrenpoint Promenade and was the object point from which the earlier panorama photo was taken on the same day (the added note about the ‘grey mists’, attached to that Panorama is of course, ‘tongue in cheek!’).
Less than one kilometre to the north is Narrow Water, where any projected road linking South Down with Louth across the river’s mouth is likely to be constructed. The scene there is similar to that depicted here. Yet few can now view this scene without recalling the IRA operation of 27 August 1979 across this strait that resulted in the deaths of 18 soldiers (and one English civilian tourist on the far coast) on the same day that Lord Mountbatten and his party were blown up off the Sligo coast. Could it be that such memories deter those in whose hands lie the decision to proceed with this worthwhile and viable project? Could the single most ‘successful’ operation of Republicans against the Crown forces also be the sticking point to deter worthwhile integration? More unfortunate symbolism!
Take a stroll to its end two hundred metres from shore and you can almost touch the cargo vessels that ply by into and out of Warrenpoint port.
I wonder whether a similar construction from the far shore, with a steel swivel (or rising, or flyover) bridge at the centre, to allow continued sea traffic, might link Louth with South Down and bring that ‘United Ireland’ a little closer.
A pipe-dream, I hear you say.
I suggest it is as likely as not to be in place, long before the return of any local legislative Assembly and Executive.