Category: Northern Ireland
Astro Park in Armagh
Tinker Bell‘s next adventure was going to be the Astro Park in Armagh. This was actually my first commissioned work. When Mel was over to see Northern Ireland, we did visit the Planetarium, but it was pouring down so heavily that we grudgingly decided to give the Astro Park a miss. Mel hence requested that I get Tinks to make a nice video instead, so that she can look forward to her next visit when the weather will hopefully be better…
Pre-flight planning with SkyVector and Airmap. I do actually miss the “everything in one App approach” from Hover, but since it has proven unreliable, I do not really have a choice in the matter.
Video feed this time observed on my iPad rather than my iPhone, and indeed the feed was much more reliable and smoother, proving that my previous problems were not with the DJI Remote Controller, but with the limited memory and processing power of my iPhone.
Edited in iMovie on my MacBook Pro.
Dundrum Castle
Tinks next outing was a planned one. Looking for a strongly three-dimnensional object to celebrate Mel’s first visit to Northern Ireland, I was going through the list of ruined castles in the Province, and Dundrum Castle in County Down ― not to be mistaken for its namesake in County Dublin ― came up as a strong candidate.
After a short drive, we arrived to find the castle sitting beautifully overlooking Dundrum Bay and the Mourne Mountains. There were a few visitors, but enough space to fulfil the 30-meters-separation requirement for take-off and landing required by law, and the groundkeeper who was mowing the lawn had no objections to flying drones ― apparently it is done quite frequently there. So, with a clear conscience, Tinks took off and shot the following footage:
Dundrum Castle was constructed by John de Courcy, a Norman invader. The exact date is unknown, but he launched his invasion in 1177, and was ousted in 1204, so the castle must have been constructed between those two dates. It is thus closely related to Carrickfergus Castle, and must have been constructed shortly after the latter’s completion.
The castle withstood the siege of Hugh de Lacy during his struggle for dominance with John de Courcy, but was conquered by King John of England in 1210, who added the central round keep. The latter is unique in Northern Ireland, and is tactically and strategically superior to the square keeps other Irish castles featured at the time ― in 1210, it was cutting-edge defence technology. In all likelihood, Welsh masons had to be brought in ― presumably by King John ― to implement this in Ireland until-then unknown type of fortification.
The castle remained in English hands until the Parliamentarians withdrew from it in 1652 for reasons unknown. My best guess would be that with the Irish Confederate Army defeated, the Parliamentarians no longer saw a strategic requirement to hold the castle. With the war won, continuing to maintain the castle was presumably deemed unjustifiably expensive. The withdrawing Parliamentarian troops demolished the castle upon their departure, presumably to prevent Irish rebels from taking possession of the empty castle and turning it into one of their strongholds.
A mansion was later built sometime after 1660 to the South of the ruined castle, but anecdotal evidence has it that the owners overexerted themselves financially in the venture, and went bankrupt before the mansion could be completed. The mansion fell into disrepair and was ruined sometime between then and the early 19th century.
The movie was manually edited in iMovie again after I decided to abandon Quik. As a result, the movie is much longer than the previous two. In spite of annoying me in many ways, Quik did have the one advantage of forcing me to keep my videos short and concise. In future, I may try a mix-and-match approach, where I probably pre-edit the movie in iMovie, but then use Quik to shorten it.
I also have decided to play completely by the rules now, and only use royalty-free background music ― on this occasion “Evil Twin” by Movie Theatre. While I personally think that current copyrights are too harsh on people who use for non-commercial purposes a copy of a song they have legally acquired and paid for, the bottom line is that whether I agree with it or not, it is against the rules…
Tullaghoge Fort
Tinks‘ next adventure was another chance discovery. Because no appointment was available at my local MOT centre for weeks to come, I grudgingly presented my car at the Cookstown DVTA Centre. On the long way back I came across a signpost to Tullaghoge Fort. Hoping to prevent the drive from being a complete loss, I stopped for a nosy. I instantly realised that this site was right up my alley, and so I returned shortly thereafter with Tinks to have a proper look.
The site is not so much of strategic but cultural significance, having been the inauguration site for chieftains since ancient times. It is not known when the site was created, and historical records only prove that the chieftains of the O’Neill clan were inaugurated here, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the site has been in use much longer than that.
The last known inauguration to take place here was that of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, in 1595. Claims that Felim O’Neill of Kinard was crowned here in 1641 are disputed. The site fell into disrepair after the Flight of the Earls in 1607, and very few features of the once substantial and culturally important site remain. Particularly, the missing inauguration stone, Leac na Rí, has been shrouded in mystery ever since.
The superficial similarity to a defensive rath has been dismissed by archaeologists as coincidence, and current academic thinking is that the arrangement of the ditches and earthen walls was unsuitable to be used as fortifications, and were of a ceremonial purpose only.
I used Quik again as the editing tool, followed by polishing in iMovie on my MacBook Pro. However, on this occasion I am much less happy with the outcome. The individual clips are much too short in my mind, and make for a unnerving viewing experience. Essentially, one never has a chance to properly take in any scene, before Quik already cuts to the next. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be settings to make Quik less hyperactive: The result is of the ‘take it or leave it’ variety.
I have therefore subsequently abandoned Quik again, and returned to doing my own editing using iMovie. Unfortunately, the raw material got corrupted and lost in most peculiar circumstances, so I am no longer able to re-edit the Tullaghoge movie above into something more to my liking…
Roughan Fort
Tinker Bell‘s next flight was going to be a wildcard. Having heard only recently and by pure chance about Roughan Fort, and being unable to find out anything about it, not even its exact location, I decided to go hunting for it equipped with GPS and Tinks. My good old friend Mary ― who has learned to live with my outbursts of geekiness ― tagged along as an extra pair of eyes, as I found in the past that as the driver, concentrating on the road, it is easy to miss hints or even something as obvious as a sign.
After several hours of cruising the countryside in the neighbourhood where I knew the castle was, we finally found it. Still, it took us two full circles around the castle and associated lough before we found what we think was the official access to it ― I am still not entirely sure that we did, but nobody challenged us on crossing this farmer’s field…
Very little is known about the castle other than that it was built in 1618 by Andrew Stewart, and that Sir Felim O’Neill of Kinard hid here from 1652 to 1653 to escape the English, who were looking for him because his involvement in the Irish rebellion of 1641. Accounts vary, but Sir Felim O’Neill was eventually betrayed and arrested in 1653 either in the castle, or on the nearby crannog. He was subsequently taken to Dublin, and hanged, drawn, and quartered as a traitor.
We know that the castle was still used in 1662, which is the last time it is mentioned in official documents, at least as far as we know of. Sometime afterwards the castle was abandoned, fell into disrepair, and is now ruined.
I brought Tinks with me on the off-chance that it would be worth my while, but was glad that I did. The ruin has been made safe, but not much has been done to allow access, so without Tinks we would have seen very little of it.
I chose to have the editing done automatically by GoPro Quik this time, and have to say that I was quite impressed with the result. For this particular motif and chosen background music, it did a very decent job. Finished off with some polishing using iMovie on my MacBook Pro.
Gilford’s Abandoned Linen Mill
When I left the Philippines to return to my job, Mel was very sad to see Tinker Bell go. For consolation, I promised her I would send Tinks to a surprise location back in Northern Ireland, to shoot her a video. This has a long tradition between us, as Mel has always been curious about Northern Ireland and our strange traditions ― like seasons (!!!) ― so I tended to send her videos from my dashcam before Tinks entered our lives.
The surprise location I came up with was Gilford’s abandoned Linen Mill. The first mill was built at 1841, and the site had since rapidly grown ― and Gilford with it ― until the heydays of linen milling in the 1880s. Strangely enough, it is not fully known when the current building was constructed other than sometime between 1841 and 1880. Following the decline of the linen industry, the mill eventually closed in 1986, and its fate has been bickered over ever since.
The work one can see that has been done to the roof and windows was in preparation of the mill being turned into the Outlet retail center, now renamed as the Boulevard. However, GML Estates ― the company behind the original plans ― changed the location from the mill to the current site in Banbridge when the latter became available, and now the fate of the mill is up in the air again.
Aircraft control via DJI Remote, and edited with iMovie on my MacBook Pro. Again, editing is minimal, the video pretty much shows the flight as flown.
RC Test Flight
The next flight was to be yet another test flight, this time to try out my new DJI remote controller for Tinker Bell. As I hoped, range is much improved, however it is still strictly line of sight only. I wonder if the larger drones have the actual control circuit on a different frequency, e.g. similar to remote-controlled airplanes, to achieve better control and range.
Anyway, this requirement for having line-of-sight with the drone at all times will require future flights to be carefully planned, and require more editing of the videos, to cut out times when the drone was stationery awaiting me to get to a new vantage point, in order to maintain line-of-sight for the next planned leg of the flight.
Edited on iMovie, initially on my iPad, then handed over to my MacBook Pro. To my surprise, the handing over of the project from one device to the other went reasonably smoothly, only minor edits were needed afterwards. Since this was only a test flight, editing was very light, and the flight is pretty much presented as flown…
One other thing I noticed about the remote control is that while the range is much improved, the video feed not necessarily so. I wonder if this is due to the fact that the remote only works with my iPhone, but not my iPad. My iPhone is quite an old model, with limited memory and processor power, so it may just not be able to stream a high-quality video stream in real-time. At some point I will have to look into this and investigate further.
Tinker Bell's Adventures 