Jonny McCambridge: Unravelling the rope bridge mystery (part 1)

The rather unlikely subject is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The stunning tourist attraction which links a tiny, remote and picturesque island with the north coast near the village of Ballintoy.

The origins of the rope bridge are very far away from what it has now become. Indeed, it could be argued that it would be hard to think of a less likely or hospitable site for visitors.

The waters around Carrick-a-Rede were once a thriving spot for Atlantic salmon which swam through the area to spawn in the rivers Bann and Bush. According to the National Trust website, the term Carrick-a-Rede comes from the Scottish Gaelic ‘Carraig-a-Rade’, meaning ‘The Rock in the Road’. Simply put, the island was in the way of the migrating fish.

Atlantic salmon were fished, according again to the National Trust website, at the site from 1620 with the first rope bridge erected to the island in 1755. It was not intended for visitors to view the beautiful landscapes and rugged cliffs, but rather as an aid for the fishermen in the perilous task of transporting the salmon to the mainland.

This situation remained more or less unaltered until the second half of the 20th century. It was in 1965 that my da, still then a teenager, took on his first ever paid job working for the fishermen at Carrick-a-Rede.

When I was a child my father would often relate the stories of his experiences working there. Any errors in the retelling of them here are entirely the fault of my imperfect memory or inability to grasp the concepts described to me.

The working day began early when my dad would travel from Ballinlea to Ballintoy on his tiny moped to begin his duties at 6am.

The first job of the season was the erection of the rope bridge, a task then so daring and difficult that it seems entirely alien to our modern sheltered sensibilities.

The rickety bridge was taken from storage and first loaded onto a small boat at Ballintoy with four men who then rowed around the coast over the choppy waters to the little island. As the tiny vessel bobbed up and down near the rocks, the men were told to time their jump onto a nearby step on the island at the point when the boat was highest in the water. Failure to time the leap correctly meant you could easily slip into the black water.

When safely ashore, the heavy bridge was then attached to a large manual winch and hauled up the side of the island.

Next, a piece of cord was tied to the bridge and attached to a stone which was then thrown from the island across the divide to the far coast. Men on that side would then pull the bridge across the gap before it was attached and fastened at each end.

The bridge now spanned the divide but was not yet complete. A number of slats ran between the two side ropes at the base. They could be stepped on but there was enough distance between that a man could fall through. The fishermen laid long wooden planks over the tops of the slats and then moved along the bridge, sitting on the planks and tying them down as they went. As they completed this task their legs dangled over the sides, high in the air above the rocks below.

With the bridge erected at the beginning of the season, attention then turned to catching the fish. The small boat went out into the water with the large nets early in the mornings. A successful day could harvest up to 300 large salmon.

If the weather did not permit the boat to go into the sea, then the fishermen would occupy their time by sewing and repairing the nets. A rifle was kept on the island which could be used to scare off sharks or seals which came too close to the nets.

At the end of the working day the fish were packed into large sacks and carried back across the rope bridge to be stored in an ice house before they were picked up and transported to market the following morning.

The rope bridge in the 1960s was very different from the stable and safe construction which is at the site today. The north coast can be notoriously windy, and the old wooden bridge would have shifted and rocked at the mercy of the elements.

My da would tell us about an occasion when the rain fell steadily and the wind blew fiercely while he and the other workers brought the salmon across. One hand held the sack of fish over the shoulder while the other grasped the side rail of the bridge which moved violently up and down as they crossed.

These were the stories I heard often in my childhood; dramatic and faintly disturbing. I stored them in my memory as best that I could, a link to a distant time and practices that were rapidly being forgotten.

When I would visit the rope bridge in later years with friends, I would always describe something of the slight link that my family had with the area. Sometimes my anecdotes would be met with sceptical glances.

But there was another story to be told. One that was repeated many times over the years by my dad. He described how when he was working at Carrick-a-Rede in the 1960s the fishermen were visited by a television camera crew who filmed their labour. The TV camera recorded the bridge being erected, the little boat going out and the nets being set for the salmon.

I grew up knowing that this had happened but still feeling remote fro m it because I had never seen the moving pictures.

My father believed that the footage had been recorded by the BBC. Twice, in my adult life, I approached the corporation inquiring about whether it could be discovered and retrieved. Both times I received the answer that they could not find anything which matched what I was describing.

In the end I had to give up on the pursuit, accepting unwillingly that the recorded images from Carrick-a-Rede had been lost and now existed only as memory and anecdote.

But memory can be persistent and tenacious. I may have occasionally thought about the old TV footage of the men working at the rope bridge. I know that my da thought about it much more often.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if some day we could find that old recording?’ he would say to me occasionally when I visited him.

Wouldn’t it be great?

And this is where the story gets really interesting.

To be continued next week ...