(Sorry no Pictures as yet)
At the End of June a spectacular thing was to be seen on the shores of Strangford Lough, 1000+ young people working together to lift a very large 46 tone lump of granite,
I went along in a team as part of Lisburn District Scouts , we arrived on the Friday at around 6pm set about putting up the tents, now you would think being scouts we would be able to put up a tent, but no, we where making such a bad job of it the BBC couldn't resist filming us, but as soon as they left the whole thing collapsed.
Friday night, there was a small disco, however not many people turned up , so an early night at around midnight.
Saturday morning, we decided to enter the Tug-of-war and what do you know we won, 13.45 we all assembled and at 2.30 we started the pull, we had to do about 40 full pulls for 30 seconds each, it may not seem much but that stone was heavy and the pulls where hard. At one stage we let go of the ropes too hard that we managed to break the locking mechanism and the stone dropped quite a bit, about an hour later it was fully erected and what a sight,
That night there was such a party with the N.Ireland band Honey and Chart topping Band 'Clock' playing, with it being presented by Miss N.I, it was quite a celebration.
Sunday morning, from nowhere we could see the Mourne Mountains and the quarry where the stone had been mined. At 11.00 the cradle used to hold the rock when it was being pulled was removed and concrete was poured into the base to let the stone stand on its own for the first time, and what a sight.
For more information about the Millennium Stone visit
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