Introduction

Stormont estate was established by Reverend Cleland in the nineteenth century. The origin of the name "Stormont" is unsure. The name of the estate is documented in 1834 as "Storm Mount" so it could have been shortened later but no one seems to know for certain. Julie and I have been stepping up our parkrun tourism and trying to weave our travels to incorporate our love of history, current affairs and politics with our parkruns. I know we love keeping it simple whilst indulging in the extraordinary.

Black Taxi Tour

We arrived in Belfast by train on Friday July 29th 2022. We had arranged a black taxi tour for the afternoon from the city centre. The Black Taxi Tour will take you through the history of Northern Ireland. For those who don’t know the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (NI) are seperate states. Northern Ireland is still within the United Kingdom whilst the Republic of Ireland is no longer part of the British Empire and completely independent. The history of sectarian violence described in NI was hard to hear. In the Republic our tought history in school goes through in great detail the level of British oppression Ireland endured but then we accept that this came to an end once Ireland became independent. This is not what Northern Ireland experienced. The republic pursued independence and freedom whilst decades of sectarian violence engulfed the northern state. It’s hard to see how a community heals after that kind of vicious fighting. Maybe parkrun can help in some way? parkrun is more universal than most things we’ve encountered all are welcome it’s free, weekly, timed and social. The key thing here being social and emphasizing common ground.

We asked our taxi driver what he thought of Irish reunification. He was a republican but unsure. We don’t want to lose the NHS. This perplexed me. The very people who orchestrated the discrimination you just described had you dependent on something vital. This pointed squarely at one of our many reunification problems. How do we make a success of it? Does the Republic of Ireland pay for it? Prior to visiting Northern Ireland this was a sticking point for me. Now I can’t shake the image of the cages protecting houses next to forty foot peace walls, the murials of dead children and segregated communities. My thoughts have changed following our visit we’re going to need to invest heavily in Northern Ireland and overwhelm this problem. If reunification happens that is? Like a parkrun in it’s infancy we have lots of work to do.

Left Peace Wall & Cage to protect house from Bombs

The Chase

Lately I’ve been chasing a parkrun goal of 40 parkruns in a the calendar year. This a revenge goal from 2020. I set out in 2022 with one mission marry Julie. We were at parkrun regularly up to our wedding day in April but I like volunteering so at the time of writing I have completed 22 of the 40 in my revenge goal for the year. We have 21 Saturdays left in the year I could parkrun on. I re evaluated my goals again lately. The 40 parkruns looked plausible but would be a battle. A battle we could win by December 31st 2022. The other chase that segeways nicely into the point of this blog is we’re chasing down the 101 parkruns you can do in Ireland. So far we’re at 15 so there is a small storm inside us raging.

andrew next to Stormont sign — Andrew by the Stormont Sign

The Course

The Stormont estate is huge. Go there early run up the hill pretend your Rocky Balboa it’s great fun. The parkrun course is a 2 lapper. You will start about halfway up the long orange road, storm down to the entrance gates then right around the forested grounds, loop back past the entrance, fly threw the playground, around by the astroturf pitches, dash by the dog playground back around to the orange straight and repeat, finishing by keeping left towards the entrance. You have a few small hills by the forest, playground and dog playground but that long straight is where you storm home to your PB. I would hold back for this straight and strike like lightening at the end because it feels great motoring down that final straight. The morning I was there the volunteers had bells, music and massive motivation to dish out to the runners. I stormed past one of the regulars on that long finish to the sound of a booming Belfast ‘well done kid’. I couldn’t help but feel old being called a kid when I’m married and with a serious goverment job. Maybe I misunderstood some Ulster Scots?

Volunteers

The volunteers played an absolute stormer of a parkrun. The RD was in a black vest and thank god I finally found another attired as such because I was getting worrried Tramore Valley might be the only one with a black RD vest. He asked me if I was going to win when I went over to say Hello. Whilst I was delighted that my shirt is hiding the spare tyre strapped around my abs I laughed and said 24 mins on a good day nowadays. Later we spotted a lovely man donned in the pink volunteer jacket masterfully constructing the parkrun prop below.

He told us about the 600 parkrunners who come to Stormont on New Years Day, his hilarious youtube videos about folding that prop and in the Stormont Mug (where we went for coffee after) he joked “Is that you with your clothes on?” when he came over to bid us farewell. Between the RD and this stalwart we had the lady giving out the water by the finish funnel who loved my wifes accent. Your welcome went down a storm folks and I’d recommend people get the Glider up to Stormont parkrun any weekend they’re available.

Conclusion

You can storm home to parkrun glory at Stormont parkrun.

Stormont parkrun | Run Down a Storm