Arboretum Flower Beds. Photo: Alan Metheringham

A lot more above and below ground in the search for Robin Hood

By Bernie Ní Fhlathartha

ROBIN Hood is probably the first thing that springs to mind when Nottingham is mentioned but many might not know that it is known as the City of Caves because of its extensive underground man-made tunnels built into the soft sandstone underfoot.
This city in the heart of England and served five days a week by Ryanair from Ireland West Airport offers so much more than mythical characters and cobblestone streets.
It doesn’t have the bustle of busier English cities, like London, Manchester or Birmingham and feels much more like a large friendly town.
Of course, a first visit to Nottingham involves a quest for Robin Hood, a thirst for wanting to know the real story, but you will find varying versions of the hero that dominated our childhood lives — that’s us of a certain age of course!
Nottingham Castle, built on a hill in the Middle Ages and rebuilt many times since, is undergoing another transformation, this time a £30 million make-over that will involve an interactive experience in a museum that promises to cover 1,000 years of history. It will re-open next year.
There’s a statue of an unrecognisable Robin Hood (of course we all have our own versions, from Errol Flynn to Seán Connery to Kevin Costner) and very few official references to this legend elsewhere in the city, though the Castle project hopes to address this.

Read the full feature in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald