Things to do in County Antrim

Ballycastle is a small market town and seaside resort on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland, its beach and harbour providing the principal visitor focus in a town that serves as the main gateway for the Rathlin Island ferry and as the central settlement of the Causeway Coast and Glens area. The beach at Ballycastle stretches for approximately one kilometre along the bay below the town, a mix of sand and shingle that is sheltered from the prevailing Atlantic swell by the headlands on either side and overlooks the distinctive flat-topped outline of Rathlin Island two kilometres offshore. The town and beach have a character that is distinctly different from the more heavily developed resorts of the Antrim coast further south. Ballycastle retains the feel of a working Irish market town with a functioning harbour, a weekly market and a local economy that extends beyond tourism alone. The Ould Lammas Fair, held annually in late August since at least the seventeenth century, is one of the oldest fairs in Ireland and draws visitors from across Northern Ireland and beyond, combining a traditional horse and cattle fair with amusements, traders and the distinctive dulse and yellowman confectionery for which Ballycastle is particularly known. The harbour below the town is the departure point for the Rathlin Island ferry, which makes the twenty-minute crossing to one of Northern Ireland's most rewarding day trip destinations several times daily in summer. Rathlin is a small, shaped island with a permanent farming and fishing community, dramatic seabird cliffs at its western end, and the cave beneath the lighthouse where Robert the Bruce is traditionally said to have sheltered and drawn inspiration from the famous spider. The puffin colony at the West Light is one of the largest and most accessible in Ireland. The surrounding Causeway Coast and Glens Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty provides extensive walking and coastal scenery, with the Fair Head cliffs immediately east of Ballycastle offering some of the most dramatic headland scenery on the north Antrim coast.

Ballygally Castle is located 26 miles from Belfast in the village of Ballygally on the sandy beaches of the Antrim coast. The original stone castle is built in the style of a French Chateau with corner turrets and a steep roof. The castle adjoins the more recent addition of a modern white rendered building of three floors. Facilities Ballygally Castle is now a 4 star hotel. The hotel offers 44 bedrooms; some in the original part of the castle, with traditional furnishings, beamed ceilings and beautiful views. The hotel's garden restaurant overlooks the grounds and serves local produce in traditional and modern cuisine. The grand affair of Sunday lunch is served in the River Room with views over the beach and bay out towards Scotland. Visitors can also eat in the hotel's lounge bar, the dungeon or the '1625 Room' which is also used as a wedding venue. As a wedding venue the experienced management team is responsible for overseeing every detail of the special day. Receptions can be held in the River Room or the '1625 Room' which is smaller more intimate room with its fireplace and antique furniture. The wedding couple also gets one of the best rooms in the house, a luxury suite overlooking the bay or gardens for their first night. Ballygally Castle was built in 1625 by James Shaw a Scot who came to Ireland in 1606 in search of his fortune. He was granted a plot of land on which he built the original castle. The castle was used during the civil war as a place of refuge for the protestants and on a number of occasions a local garrison of soldiers tried to take it but without success. In the middle of the 18th century the castle was extended as four new residents came to live there; the squire Henry Shaw, his new wife and her two sisters. The castle remained in the Shaw family with the last squire of Ballygally being William Shaw in the early 1800's when the castle and lands were lost along with all the family's wealth. After this time the castle was first used as a coastguard station and then as a home to at least three other families until it was eventually sold in the 1950's to Cyril Lord a textile millionaire who refurbished the castle and opened it as a hotel. 1n 1966 the Hastings Hotel Group became the owners of the hotel since when it has undergone refurbishment a number of times. Legends Legend has it that on the birth of his first son and heir Lord Shaw took the child and locked him in a room at the top of the tower. Whilst looking for her child Lady Isobella accidentally fell (or was pushed) through the tower window to her death. Her spirit is reported to haunt the castle.

Belfast Castle stands on the slopes of Cave Hill overlooking Belfast Lough from a commanding position above the north of the city, a Scottish Baronial country house of the nineteenth century that combines handsome architecture with a dramatic hillside setting and panoramic views across Belfast and the lough beyond. The castle was built in its present form for the third Marquess of Donegall between 1862 and 1870, replacing an earlier structure on the Cave Hill estate, and was designed in the Scots Baronial style that was fashionable among the aristocracy and wealthy middle classes of Victorian Britain and Ireland. The style of the castle, with its turrets, corbelled bartizans, crow-stepped gables and romantic castellated roofline, was derived from the Scottish tower house and castle traditions filtered through the influence of Balmoral Castle and the broader Victorian Romantic movement associated with Sir Walter Scott. Belfast Castle belongs to the same tradition of Victorian Gothic and Baronial revivalism that produced numerous similar houses across Ireland and Scotland in the second half of the nineteenth century, and its confident deployment of this architectural vocabulary reflects the wealth and social ambitions of the Donegall family at the peak of their influence. The castle was gifted to Belfast Corporation in 1934 and has been used ever since as a public amenity. A major restoration programme in the 1980s brought the building back to good condition, and it now houses a restaurant and function rooms while remaining accessible to the public as a visitor attraction. The heritage centre within the building explores the history of the castle and the Cave Hill estate. Cave Hill itself, the basalt outcrop rising above the castle, provides one of the finest walking experiences available within Belfast's boundaries. The path to McArt's Fort at the summit, where Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen are said to have made their pledge to establish an independent Irish republic in 1795, follows the escarpment above the city with spectacular views in both directions.

The Old Bushmills Distillery in the village of Bushmills in County Antrim is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world, a claim supported by a grant of distilling rights issued in 1608 by King James I that makes the Bushmills operation the earliest formally documented whiskey distillery in recorded history. The distillery produces a range of single malt and blended Irish whiskies that are sold internationally, and the visitor experience it offers is one of the finest distillery tours in Ireland, combining the historic credentials of the site with a thorough and accessible explanation of the whiskey-making process. The distillery stands on the bank of the St Columb's Rill, a small stream whose waters contribute to the character of Bushmills whiskey, in the centre of the village that takes its name from the mill on the bush river nearby. The current buildings date primarily from the nineteenth century, the original distillery having been destroyed by fire and rebuilt on several occasions, but the overall impression of a working Victorian distillery with its brick warehouses, malting floors and copper pot stills has been carefully maintained. The distinctive smell of fermenting mash and the distinctive sweetness of maturing spirit in the bonded warehouses are among the sensory experiences that make distillery visits so compelling. The tour covers the full whiskey-making process from malting the barley through to the triple distillation in copper pot stills that gives Irish whiskey its characteristic smoothness, the maturation in bourbon and sherry casks and the blending that produces the finished product. The tasting at the end of the tour provides an opportunity to compare different expressions of the Bushmills range in the appropriate context. The distillery's location near the Giant's Causeway, one of Ireland's most visited natural sites, makes it a natural stopping point on a Causeway Coast itinerary, and the village of Bushmills itself has several good restaurants and the Bushmills Inn hotel.

Bushmills is a small village in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, famous throughout the world as the home of the Old Bushmills Distillery, the oldest licensed distillery in the world, whose whiskey has been produced on this site since at least 1608 and whose visitor experience provides one of the most popular and most rewarding distillery tours in Ireland. The village itself is a pleasant Antrim settlement of stone cottages and the River Bush that flows through the village has provided the water for whiskey production for over four centuries. The Old Bushmills Distillery, the centrepiece of the village's identity, produces the triple-distilled Irish whiskey that has made it one of the most recognised whiskey brands internationally, its distinctive smooth character a result of the triple distillation process and the quality of the local water filtered through basalt rock. The distillery tour, one of the most popular in Ireland, takes visitors through the production process from malting through distilling to maturation in the warehouse where the whiskey develops in oak casks over periods from three to twenty-one years. The village's position on the Causeway Coast provides access to the remarkable natural and heritage attractions of this section of the Antrim coast, including the Giant's Causeway three miles to the east, the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and the dramatic coastal scenery of the Antrim cliffs. The Bushmills to Causeway tramway provides a heritage transport link to the Causeway visitor centre.

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge on the north Antrim coast near Ballintoy is one of the most popular visitor attractions in Northern Ireland, a dramatic rope bridge spanning a 20-metre chasm between the mainland cliff and the small rocky island of Carrick-a-Rede, suspended 30 metres above the crashing sea below. The bridge, now managed by the National Trust, was originally erected annually by salmon fishermen who used the island as a base for their nets during the summer salmon season, the bridge providing a crossing that was practical for experienced fishermen but genuinely alarming for those less accustomed to swinging bridges over significant drops. The current bridge is a much more substantial structure than the original fishermen's rope bridge, which consisted of a single handrail and was designed more for the fishermen's convenience than the comfort of the casual visitor. The modern version provides a safe crossing with mesh sides that prevents the most extreme vertigo while still communicating the exposure of the situation, and the experience of crossing with the sea churning far below and the Atlantic wind adding movement to the structure is one of the most memorable short physical experiences available in Northern Ireland. The island of Carrick-a-Rede itself is a small, rocky outcrop that provides nesting habitat for fulmars and other seabirds and commands excellent views along the north Antrim coast toward Fair Head to the east and the Giant's Causeway to the west. The perspective from the island back toward the mainland cliff gives a clear impression of the dramatic geological character of this section of coastline, where the basalt cliffs and sea stacks reflect the volcanic history of the northeast Irish coast. The coastal path from Ballintoy to the bridge and the wider Causeway Coast Way provide excellent walking in a landscape of geological and natural interest. The Giant's Causeway is approximately eight kilometres to the west and the two sites are frequently visited together as part of a Causeway Coast day.

Situated in the town of Carrickfergus the castle has wonderful views over Belfast Lough and is only 11 miles north of Belfast itself. The well preserved Norman castle is considered one the finest examples of its kind in Ireland. It has the remains of its original curtain wall along with a postern gate on the seaward side and an eastern tower. The eastern tower; believed to have housed the chapel, has a chamber on the first floor with a Romanesque double window and cross bow loops at basement level. Facilities The castle is open to the public daily all year round between Easter and September 10am to 6pm and from October to Easter between 10am and 4pm. There is a display of cannons from the 17th to the 19th centuries along with historical exhibits and information on castle's history inside the keep. The castle is licensed for civil wedding ceremonies to a maximum of 50 guests and it also possible to hire the castle for private events such as children's parties in the dungeons. Built in 1177 by John de Courcy, Carrickfergus Castle was used as his headquarters until 1204. The original castle site consisted of a bailey, inner wall and great hall as well as other buildings which were all surrounded by a high polygonal curtain wall to protect it from the sea. In 1204 de Courcy lost the castle to Hugh de Lacy. In 1210 the castle came under attack from the soldiers of King John and in 1217 a new larger curtain wall was built to protect the castle during low tide on the eastern side. Hugh de Lacy also added a huge portcullis at the gatehouse and a vault which were all completed in 1250. The castle remained in the hands of the crown throughout the 16th and 17th centuries with many more improvements and additions being made including embrasures for the cannon's and splayed gun ports. The castle's defences were still not sufficient to prevent it from being taken many times, most notably in 1690 by General Schomberg for King William III and in 1760 by Francois Thurot for the French. This was also the time when the middle curtain wall was taken down apart from a section on the seaward side. The Napoleonic Wars in 1797 saw the castle being used as a prison as well as an armory, in the First World War and Second World Wars the castle was used as a garrison and an air raid shelter. In 1928 ownership was granted to the state who declared it a National Monument and opened to the public.

Cushendall is the principal village of the Glens of Antrim, a settlement at the confluence of three of the nine Antrim glens whose combination of the colourful painted shopfronts, the remarkable Curfew Tower that serves as the principal visual landmark of the village and the access it provides to the surrounding glens and the Antrim coast makes it the most rewarding base for exploring this section of the northeast Irish coast. The village is the centre of the Red Bay area and the nearby Red Bay castle ruins provide the medieval dimension to a village whose character is primarily Georgian and Victorian. The Curfew Tower, an unusual circular red sandstone tower built in 1817 by Francis Turnly as a place of confinement for idlers and rioters, is the most distinctive building in the village and provides a visual focal point quite unlike any other structure on the Antrim coast. Its original function as a lock-up for disturbers of the peace was apparently taken seriously by its builder, who was sufficiently exercised by the idleness of the local population to build a dedicated facility for their correction. The surrounding Glens of Antrim, in particular Glenariff to the south with its series of waterfalls and the Forest Park, Glenaan and Glenballyeamon to the north, provide excellent walking and scenery in a landscape that is among the most beautiful and most traditionally Irish in the northeast. The Irish language has been spoken in the Glens for centuries and the Gaelic culture of this section of Antrim is among the most authentic surviving in Ulster.

Cushendun is a small and exceptionally charming village at the foot of the most northerly of the Glens of Antrim, a settlement whose white-washed Cornish-style cottages designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect of Portmeirion, provide one of the most architecturally distinctive village streetscapes on the Antrim coast. The village is owned by the National Trust and the combination of the protected architecture, the small harbour, the sea caves accessible on the beach below the cliffs and the beautiful setting at the glen mouth creates one of the most rewarding small coastal destinations in Northern Ireland. The Cornish-style cottages were designed by Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s for the Glenavy family who owned the village and wished to create a harmonious architectural character for the settlement. Williams-Ellis, whose most famous work is the fantasy village of Portmeirion in Wales, produced at Cushendun a group of white-washed cottages with distinctive slate roofs and architectural details that create a coherent visual character quite unlike any other Antrim village, and which contributed to the National Trust's decision to acquire the village and protect its character. The sea caves accessible on the beach below the clifftop car park, carved by wave action from the distinctive red Cushendun Conglomerate, provided a dramatic location for the shadow demon birth scene in the television series Game of Thrones, and the filming association has added to the village's visitor interest.

The Dark Hedges near Stranocum in County Antrim is one of the most photographed natural features in Ireland, a beech avenue of approximately 150 years old whose intertwining canopy and atmospheric quality have made it one of the iconic images of the Northern Irish countryside and, since its appearance as the King's Road in the television series Game of Thrones, one of the most visited locations in Northern Ireland. The trees were planted in the eighteenth century by the Stuart family of Gracehill House as an impressive entrance avenue to their property and the century and a half of growth has produced the extraordinary interlocking canopy that creates the tunnel effect in both summer and winter. The Game of Thrones connection, though now the primary driver of the tourism that has made the Dark Hedges a National Tourism destination, is secondary to the genuine natural quality of the avenue itself. The beech trees, planted in pairs on either side of the road, have grown toward each other across the carriageway as mature beeches inevitably do and the resulting canopy creates a natural tunnel of considerable atmospheric power regardless of any television association. The trees are now protected and managed by the local authority and the volume of visitor traffic has required the introduction of managed access arrangements to protect both the trees and the narrow country lane that runs beneath them. The most atmospheric photographs of the Dark Hedges are made in early morning or evening light when mist is present, conditions that occur with some regularity in the north Antrim countryside.

This fortress stands on the Kinbane Castle.summit of a bold promontory that rises to a great height above the sea. Dunaneeny means " the fort of the assembly or fair." The area on which the castle stood is a smoothlevel, measuring from east to west 60 yards, and from north to south 35 yards. It was surrounded by the sea on all sides except the south, where it was protected by a moat extending from east to west 80 yards, cut chiefly through the solid rock. The highest part of the wall now remaining is only 12 1/2 feet, and every vestige of the castle which stood within the fortified area has disappeared. Tradition says it was built by the O'Carrols, an old family who resided here many centuries ago. Later, the chieftains of the MacDonnells made this one of their principal strongholds, and from it they could watch their galleys gliding into Port Brittas almost at its base. The castle is notable for being the birthplace of the second Sorley Boy MacDonnell, who was born here in 1505. It was from here, at the head of his kerns and gallowglasses, he led them from victory to victory, till he became master of the whole of the Route. It was here, too, he died, and from here he was carried to his resting-place, the procession making its way through Ballycastle to the Abbey of Bun-na-mairgie, where they laid their gallant chief in a soldier's grave.The ruins of this ancient church and friary are only a few minutes' walk from Ballycastle. The friary is said to have been built by the MacQuillins, and to have been enlarged by the MacDonnells. Formerly a river ran close to the abbey, but its course was diverted in 1738 by Mr. Boyd, in order that it might help to deepen the inner dock.. The church and friary were built of Ballycastle sandstone, filled in with small stones. From the fourteenth or fifteenth century it was occupied by Franciscan friars of the third order. The church suffered considerable damage on 4th January, 1584, when the English of the Pale, under Sir John Perrott, marched to Bun-na-mairgie, where, leaving his cavalry in charge of Sir William Stanley in and around the church, he placed his infantry in the Fort of Ballycastle. Sorley Boy was on his way home with several galleys full of Scots, but his followers, anticipating his arrival, attacked the English troops at Bun-na-mairgie at one o'clock in the morning, and set fire to the roof of the church, which was thatched. The church was full of horses. A severe battle ensued, in which Sir William Stanley was wounded, and Sir John Perrott was forced to withdraw his troops, but took with him St. Columba's cross from the church, which he sent to Sir Francis Walshingham, describing it as Sorley Boy's cross, with a request it should be given to Lady Walshingham. The church was subsequently restored and the friary again reoccupied. The churchyard of Bun-na-mairgie was the burial-place of the MacDonnells. The place, says Rev. George Hill, heaves with the MacDonnell dust. There were those who fell when James MacDonnell slaughtered the MacQuillins in Glenshesc at the battle of Aura. There were those who fell when Shane O'Neill overthrew Sorley MacDonnell and his brother James in 1665 at Glenshesc or Glentow. There were, too, those who fell around Bun-na-mairgie in 1584 when Sorley Boy and his followers repulsed Sir John Perrott and his followers. It is said that during this period heaps of bodies were carried there and left unburied for weeks until an opportunity came.

Dunluce Castle balances of the edge of a rocky outcrop on headland overlooking the North Channel. Access to the castle is via a bridge which connects it to the mainland near Portrush. The medieval castle is now in a totally ruined state but still has partial remains of its round corner towers and outer wall. Facilities The castle is part of a site which includes a Visitor Centre, shop, ruins of the town; burnt down by fire in 1641 and gardens. Guided tours are offered between Easter and September between 10am and 6pm and October to Easter until 4pm daily. Dunluce Castle was built in the 1200's by the 2nd Earl of Ulster, Richard de Burgh, on the site of an earlier fort dating back to the Vikings. In 1513 the castle was occupied by the MacQuillian family also known as Lord's of the Route and later it passed to the MacDonnell clan. It was Somerled MacDonnell who improved the castle in a Scottish style in 1584 and when a ship from the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the rocks below the castle four years later, the MacDonnell's sold the cargo and installed the cannon in the castle's gatehouse. The castle remained with the Mac Donnell's until the end of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 when it was left abandoned and fell into ruins. The Arts The castle has been used as the setting for the villains' lair in the film 'The Medallion' with Jackie Chan in 2001. The castle appeared in the artwork of the inner gatefold of the 1973 Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy. Legends Legend has it that out of all the kitchen staff only one boy survived an incident when a large part of the castle's kitchen collapsed into the sea.

Dunseverick Castle is the dramatically situated ruins of one of the oldest castles in Ireland, perched on a narrow sea stack on the North Antrim coast between the Giant's Causeway and Ballintoy, its fragmentary walls rising from sheer basalt cliffs above the Atlantic. The site was fortified from at least the early medieval period, with Dunseverick mentioned in the ancient Ulster annals and associated with the legendary figures of early Irish history. The present masonry represents the latest phase of occupation, with the castle destroyed by Cromwellian forces in 1653. The coastal path that passes the castle is part of the Causeway Coast Way, one of the most spectacular coastal walking routes in Ireland, with the Giant's Causeway UNESCO World Heritage Site a short distance to the west.

Fair Head on the northeast Antrim coast is the most dramatic headland in Northern Ireland, a great cliff of basalt columns approximately 180 metres high above the North Channel whose combination of the scale of the cliffs, the views across the narrow sea to the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland and the quality of the walking on the clifftop and through the remarkable glacial landscape of the plateau behind the cliff makes it one of the finest natural heritage destinations in Ulster. The basalt columns of Fair Head are among the largest in the British Isles, the individual columns reaching up to 120 metres in height in a display of geological structure that equals and in some respects surpasses the better-known Giant's Causeway. The plateau behind the cliff edge contains a remarkable landscape of glacial lakes, peat bog and ancient woodland remnants that have developed in the shelter of the cliff behind in a habitat mosaic of considerable ecological interest. The three glacial lakes of Lough na Cranagh, Lough Doo and Lough Fadden occupy corrie-like depressions on the plateau and the grey lang, an area of glacially transported boulders, demonstrates the scale of the glacial ice that shaped this headland. The views from Fair Head across the North Channel to the Mull of Kintyre, approximately 23 kilometres away, and on clear days to the coast of Islay further north, provide the most direct appreciation of the geographic relationship between northeast Ireland and southwest Scotland, a proximity that underpinned centuries of cultural exchange between the two coastlines.

The Giant's Causeway on the north Antrim coast of Northern Ireland is the most visited tourist attraction in Ireland and one of the most spectacular geological formations in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where approximately forty thousand interlocking basalt columns formed by the slow cooling of volcanic lava approximately sixty million years ago create a pavement of extraordinary geometric regularity extending from the base of the sea cliffs into the Atlantic Ocean. The columns are predominantly hexagonal in cross-section, ranging from a few centimetres to over forty centimetres across, and their regular, almost architectural form seems more like deliberate construction than geological process. The volcanic episode that created the Causeway was part of the great North Atlantic rifting event of the Eocene period, when enormous quantities of basalt lava erupted across what is now northeastern Ireland and western Scotland, creating formations that appear at the Giant's Causeway, on the island of Staffa in Scotland and at several other locations along what was once a continuous volcanic landscape. As the thick lava flows cooled slowly from the top and bottom simultaneously, contraction fractures propagated inward through the cooling rock, intersecting in the polygonal pattern that reflects the most efficient packing of cracks in a homogeneous medium. The geometry is the same reason soap bubbles pack in hexagonal arrangements. The legend of Fionn mac Cumhaill, the Irish giant who built the Causeway to reach his Scottish rival Benandonner, is one of Ireland's most famous myths and provides an entirely satisfying alternative explanation for a formation that does appear almost impossibly constructed. The story connects the Causeway to the identical formation at Fingal's Cave on Staffa, a geological relationship that the legend understood intuitively without recourse to volcanology. The National Trust visitor centre provides excellent interpretation and the clifftop coastal path gives access to spectacular views of the Causeway from above.