Here are just a few of the many places to visit on the North Coast
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1608 Original Grant to Distil King James I grants Sir Thomas Phillips a royal licence to distil ‘uisce beatha', the gaelic for 'water of life', or whiskey as we know it today, in 'the territory of the Rowte' in Co. Antrim. This is the first official recorded evidence of whiskey-making in the area that was to become Bushmills. 2009 Ireland's oldest working distillery A unique whiskey-making tradition lives on at Ireland's oldest working distillery. Taste it in every drop of our whiskey. |
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The limestone cliffs of the White Rocks stretch from Curran Strand to Dunluce Castle. These soft, sedimentary rocks have been carved through centuries into a labyrinth of caves and arches. Shelagh's Head, the Wishing Arch, Elephant Rock and the Lion's Paw are headlands of distinguishable forms which rise out of the ocean. Under the road, there are cavernous caves, accessible only from the sea, home to seabirds and a hunting ground for hawks.
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Mussenden Temple is a small circular building located on cliffs near Castlerock in County Londonderry, high above the Atlantic Ocean on the north-western coast of Northern Ireland. It was built in 1785 and forms part of the estate of Frederick Augustus Hervey, the 4th Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry. Built as a library and modelled on the Temple of Vesta in Italy, it is dedicated to the memory of Hervey's cousin Frideswide Mussenden. Over the years the erosion of the cliff face at Downhill has brought Mussenden Temple ever closer to the edge, and in 1997 the National Trust carried out cliff stabilisation work to prevent the loss of the building. |
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The Giants Causeway (or Irish: Clochán na bhFómharach) is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim, on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, about two miles (3 km) north of the town of Bushmills. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and a National Nature Reserve in 1987 by the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, the Giant's Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. |
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Carrick-a-Rede is a rope suspension bridge near Ballintoy, County Antrim. The bridge links the mainland to the tiny Carrick Island. The site is owned and maintained by the National Trust, spans twenty metres and is thirty metres above the rocks below. Today the bridge is mainly a tourist attraction, with 227,000 visitors a year. The bridge is now taken down every year in late October or early November, depending on weather conditions, having been put up in March. Carrick-a-rede means 'rock in the road'. It is thought salmon fishermen have been erecting bridges to the island for over 350 years |
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The first Ballintoy harbour was built in the eighteenth century by a trickster of the name 'Graceless' Stewart to allow the shipping of cheap coal to Dublin. In recent years the harbour has been upgraded and is very popular with fishermen and deep sea divers alike. There is beautiful little limestone built cafe at the harbour and nearby a footpath along which you can walk around the headland to Whitepark Bay. In the harbour there is an old lime kiln which you can drive/walk up onto and eat you picnic.
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Situated about 7 miles west of Ballycastle, Whitepark Bay is about 2 miles wide opening straight into the Atlantic ocean and accessible from either the car park at the top of a steep climb or from Ballintoy harbour which is just around the headland in the distance to the east. Neolithic man chose this beautiful place as an early home and a tumulus can be seen among the dunes. In the north-west corner of the bay is a tiny cluster of houses called Portbraddan, which contains Ireland's smallest church, a thatched building about 10ft by 6ft dedicated to St Gobhan, the patron saint of builders.
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Dunluce Castle (Irish: Dún Lios, "strong fort") is a now-ruined medieval castle in Northern Ireland. It is located on the edge of a basalt outcropping in County Antrim (between Portballintrae and Portrush), and is accessible via a bridge connecting it to the mainland. The castle is surrounded by extremely steep drops on either side, which may have been an important factor to the early Christians and Vikings who were drawn to this place where an early Irish fort once stood. In the 1200s Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster, built the first castle at Dunluce. |
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