Boldly Go Solo

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, is alive and well and living in a neo-classical house in Northern Ireland. I couldn’t believe it either. There really is a Mary! Actually, there’s a Mairi. As in Mairi, Mairi, quite contrary.

And her garden still grows. It’s landscaped and huge and filled with silver bells (campanulas) and Pretty Maids (saxifraga) all in a row. On a property called Mount Stewart House & Garden, near the Irish Sea, just outside Belfast.

I learned that Mairi was more than just a nursery rhyme, while on a group tour that I joined as a solo traveler. We were a bus load of about 20 people. I wandered off alone to see the gardens and explore a fresh foods market set up in a tent that day. And to watch Irish dancing demonstrations.

The house is the ancestral home of Robert Stewart, also known as Lord Castlereagh, also known as the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry. Mairi’s a descendant of a bunch of marquesses.
During a tour, our guide told us that Mairi still lives there, in the house we were wandering through. She’s not that mobile anymore, but she has been known, over the years, to walk among the visitors and have a chat.

It was exciting, don’t ask me why, just to be in Mairi, Mairi, quite contrary’s house. What girl growing up didn’t know that nursery rhyme? Next thing you know I’ll be running into Mother Goose somewhere. And be just as darned excited.

Photo: Ellen Perlman. Garden at Mount Stewart.

Baked goods from a Belfast bakery