Historic Places in County Antrim

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.

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.

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.

Glenarm Castle in Glenarm village on the Glens of Antrim coast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, has been the ancestral seat of the McDonnell family, Earls of Antrim, since the seventeenth century. The castle incorporates earlier fabric within a building substantially rebuilt in the nineteenth century in the Gothic Revival style. The walled garden at Glenarm Castle is one of the finest walled gardens in Northern Ireland, with extensive herbaceous borders, kitchen garden, woodland and formal areas accessible to visitors during the season. The town of Glenarm is the oldest planted town in Ulster. The Glens of Antrim coastline, with its series of beautiful glaciated glens running down to the sea, provides one of the most scenically dramatic landscapes in Northern Ireland.

Kinbane Castle is a dramatically situated ruined sixteenth-century tower house on Kenbane Head on the North Antrim coast, its white limestone walls rising from the narrow headland that gives the castle its name, kenbane meaning white headland in Irish. The castle was built by Colla MacDonnell, brother of the Scots-Irish lord Sorley Boy MacDonnell, one of the most significant figures in the turbulent history of sixteenth-century Ulster. The castle was twice attacked and damaged by the English Crown during the wars against the MacDonnells, and was eventually abandoned. The headland position above the Atlantic provides outstanding views along the North Antrim coast and is accessible from a steep path descending from the clifftop car park. The surrounding coastal landscape, including the Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge nearby, is one of the most celebrated in Ireland.

Olderfleet Castle at Larne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is a ruined sixteenth-century tower house on the shore of Larne Lough, associated with the MacDonnell family who controlled the sea routes between northeast Ulster and the Hebrides and Kintyre in Scotland throughout the sixteenth century. The castle controlled the important harbour of Larne, one of the main landing points for the movement of Scottish troops and settlers into Ulster. The ruins stand on the harbour front and are visible from the ferry terminal that operates the modern Larne to Cairnryan sea crossing, one of the shortest routes between Northern Ireland and Scotland, providing a vivid illustration of the continuing strategic importance of this sea crossing across many centuries of Ulster and Scottish history.

Shanes Castle on the north shore of Lough Neagh in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is a ruined nineteenth-century Gothic Revival castle set within a demesne that incorporates the ruins of the original O'Neill castle, the ancestral seat of the O'Neill family who were the most powerful of all the Ulster chieftains throughout the medieval and early modern periods. The estate now operates as a tourist attraction offering a narrow-gauge railway through the parkland, nature reserve, falconry and wildlife tours. The O'Neill connection with Lough Neagh gives the site a deep historical resonance as the heartland of the Ulster chieftaincy that dominated the north of Ireland for centuries.

Stormont Castle is one of two great houses forming the Parliament Buildings complex at Stormont in east Belfast, providing the official residence of the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and serving as the primary working base of the Northern Ireland Executive. The castle, a Scottish Baronial house of the nineteenth century, is set within the extensive Stormont Estate alongside Parliament Buildings, the imposing neoclassical building that houses the Northern Ireland Assembly and which provides one of the most recognisable political landmarks in Northern Ireland. The Stormont Estate grounds are open to the public and provide extensive parkland walking with views over Belfast and the surrounding hills, making the estate one of the more surprisingly accessible political and heritage sites in the United Kingdom.