My Weekend with Gerry Darby: ‘Sundays are just the loveliest of all the days of the week’

Breakfast or brunch?

I used to be a big Ulster Fry guy on a Saturday morning and loved the whole experience of getting the big pan out and making it for all the family. But my kids are all grown up now and I was seriously ill three years ago. So, these days I try to stick to just good Lavazza coffee and maybe a bit of muesli. However, I will still bring my wife up some tea and toast in bed as she still likes a wee lie in bed.

What does an ideal Saturday look like?

For most of my adult life, I have lived in Omagh, although I am originally from north Belfast. However, I have also worked on Lough Neagh for most of that time and have had to travel nearly two hours a day there and back. So, after my kids were grown up and away, I moved from Tyrone after 23 years and bought a house in Toome, much nearer to my work. I quickly worked out that Toome was a great place to live, as I could get to Ballycastle or Glenarm within a 40-minute drive.

So, for the last two years, most of my Saturdays have usually involved becoming acquainted with the beauty of the North Coast of Ireland, walking Ballycastle beach, or Whites Rocks beach. In fact, for the first time in my life, this year, I went to the North West 200 and absolutely loved it. So, my Saturdays are now taken up with long walks and visits along the most beautiful beaches and strands in Ireland, which are sitting literally on my own doorstep.

What do you get up to on a Sunday?

Growing up in North Belfast I always hated Sundays. They always started off in the morning with dressing up in tight itchy polyester trousers and shirts and attending church listening to a boring little man telling us all from his high pulpit that we were just ‘a mass of sin’ and the real action was not in this world but the one to become.

The afternoons were always quiet, boring and dead, everyone stayed in their house, and nobody played or had fun. In fact, fun was clearly banned. By the late evening, it just got worse, as I realised that I had done none of my homework and scrambled late into the night to cover myself for the next day of teacher interrogation and sarcasm.

Do you prefer indoors or outdoors?

The good news is that once I left school, things slowly got better to the point that now I think Sundays are just the loveliest of all the days of the week.

Sunday mornings still involve an early rise, but all my clothes are loose, beautiful to touch, and I’ve given up God for touching base with nature. Sunday mornings still involve an early rise, followed by a smaller local walk with my dog. My brother and sisters are also great walkers and so I would often spend Sunday afternoon with them at Antrim Clotworthy Castle, Lough Beg Strand or Portglenone Forest.

How have weekends changed as you have gotten older?

After my serious illness three years ago, I cut back on the booze but not totally. Certainly not as much as my wife would have liked. I am very lucky to have a good set of friends, one a group of old St Malachian school friends that still meet on the last Friday of every month and the other friends from around Lough Neagh where I work.

So, at the end of every month, I can be found drinking in Kelly’s Cellars in Belfast on the last Friday and in Stella’s Bar in Ballyronan on the last Saturday.

Both, I have to say are great weekend experiences. Just old boomers still solving all the problems of the world. But when I come home a bit tipsy, my wife still gently reminds me that she thinks I drink too much.

If you could eat out anywhere at the weekend, where would you go?

Whilst I don’t eat much during the day on the weekends, on most Saturday evenings both myself and my wife usually indulge we and take a quick drive into Belfast for an evening meal. With the new dual carriageway extension onto the M2 motorway, it is now so easy to jump into the car and be in Belfast in no time at all. Some of our best and enjoyable eating experiences have been in Coppi, Zen, AM/PM and Villa Italia. All well worth a visit.

And you would have?

Since I go out in Belfast with old school friends for a meal at the end of every month, I have noticed that many of the restaurants are very similar and all becoming a bit bland. I now try out restaurants with a specific spicy cuisine such as Indian or Chinese. Zen Belfast and the Nu Delhi are worth checking out.

At the weekend, you always make time to?

I always make time to catch up on the news. I have given up on mainstream news, so I love to just browse my favourite podcasts which are the Economist and the New Statesman for an update on news and events happening all around the world. For local news, of course, I still buy the Belfast Telegraph.

Are you a weekend cook?

Not really. I used to be a big cook when my boys were young but now I prefer something simple or maybe to not even eat at all during the day and go for a meal or have a takeaway on Friday or Saturday evening.

Who would you most like to go for a drink with?

There are so many people that I would love to have a drink with. I am a big fan of clear thinkers and people who have a bit of an edge and are a bit anti-establishment. So, of those still alive I would love to have a drink with Jordan Peterson and get a feel for where he sees the culture wars ending up. And of my dead heroes, I would really love to have been present in the most famous of all drinking sessions, at the Symposium with Socrates in ancient Greece.

Too tired to cook – what are you ordering from the takeaway?

As I live in Toome, I’m lucky to be beside one of the best fish and chip shops in the whole of Ireland, the Fried Fish Warehouse. Not only does it make the best fish supper but also specialises in fish from the Lough including Lough Neagh Trout and Pollan.

Heading for the cinema? What are you going to see?

I went to the Queen’s Film Festival with my son last Sunday afternoon to see the fortieth anniversary of the making of Local Hero. This is my number one film of all time and after forty years it still didn’t disappoint. A film well before its time and still has a strong message for us all about how to live a good, fulfilled, flourishing life.

What are you reading?

Sounds a bit ponsey but I am browsing through Plutarch, the Fall of the Roman Republic. It’s a lovely little Penguin Classic book and easy to read. I have a big interest in ancient Greece and Rome and reading the book really gets you right into a long lost and fascinating world.

What’s your bedtime routine?

I grew up in North Belfast during the heart of The Troubles and witnessed a very violent and brutal city. When I go into Belfast now on a Saturday evening, I see a new transformed, thriving city, fully at ease with itself. It’s almost a miraculous transformation, a new Shining City Upon a Hill. So, if I am honest, and I am a well-travelled person, I cannot think of no better city in the whole of the world to hang out in at the weekend.

Lough Neagh Partnership helps to manage and protect the lough and its shoreline. For more information, see loughneaghpartnership.org