A coastline to die for
 Martin Doyle takes a drive along the breathtaking coast of Antrim, from Larne to the beaches of Portrush.
When you are located within a six-sided stone’s throw of a World Heritage Site, you have got to be a little bit special to get any attention.
Happily for Antrim’s Causeway coast, which stretches either side of the Giant’s Causeway for some 60 miles, it has some of the finest beaches, bays, historic sites and sea views that Ireland has to offer.
Taking the port of Larne (just north of Belfast) as our starting point, we set off on a fine October day to trace the coastal route as far as Portrush, the North’s most popular seaside resort that is kept lively all year round by its second job as a dormitory town for the University of Ulster at nearby Coleraine.
The first sight on the route is the pretty but rather unfortunately named Drain Bay. Soon after, though, comes Carnfunnock Country Park, which boasts a maze in the shape of Northern Ireland. I wonder if there is a maze in the South in the shape of the 26 counties? Perhaps they could be twinned? Or send each other clippings?
Apart from the partitionist shrubbery, the park boasts a walled garden (not, sadly, in the shape of West Berlin), a caravan park, children’s activity centre, a mini railway, golf course and ice house.
Next comes Glenarm, whose welcoming UVF graffiti translates as “keep driving”, and then Carnlough, whose bilingual road signs and Sinn Féin election posters signal that you are now in the Glens, a beautiful but sparsely populated region of Antrim that is solidly nationalist.
The town’s Londonderry Arms was once owned by Winston Churchill and the limestone bridge over the main road was built by the Londonderrys to carry more limestone to the pretty limestone harbour. The old railway line in the village is now a path leading to Cranny Waterfalls and Gortin Quarry nature reserve.
It is overlooked by Glenariff (or the Ploughman’s Glen) a looming mountain that is the spit of WB Yeats’ Ben Bulben in Co. Sligo. It has its own forest park, complete with camping and caravan site, accessed by the A43 Waterfoot to Ballymena road, whose spectacular glen walk includes three waterfalls and a scenic path that leads to viewpoints from which you can look out over the Glens and the sea.
A short way inland from here is Grace Hill, a Moravian village where the men and women are still buried, on opposite sides of the graveyard. Another graveyard, that of Layde Old Church on top of the cliff overlooking Cushendall, hosts the body of the warlord MacDonnell.
Mary McBride’s in Cushendun is a good place to stop for lunch or dinner, a homely, unpretentious pub with an open fire and good, fair-priced food, such as fresh seafood chowder and Irish stew. The town itself has some fine whitewashed cottages designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, who built the famous Portmerion in Wales, as well as the old schoolhouse at the Giant’s Causeway, which now houses the Causeway School Museum.
Cave House in the town, reached through a 60ft rock tunnel, is now a religious retreat but was where the poet John Masefield went courting in 1820. It is said that St. Patrick made the two hollows in the Gloonan Stone, opposite the Catholic Church, while praying on his knees.
Having glutted ourselves on seafood and sea views, it was time to follow the A2 as it turns inland for a different kind of treat, Glendun (the Brown Glen) whose rugged landscape, all browns and greens, brings to mind the desolate stretches of the Wicklow hills, rather than say the barren, rocky fields of Connemara.
You will scarcely see a soul as you drive through the Glens. While the Giant’s Causeway or Bushmills distillery soaks up a constant stream of visitors, coach parties and day-trippers, the Glens are a neglected treasure and frankly so much the better for it. Good luck to you if you like to walk where a million shoes have safely walked before, but for me there is far more pleasure to be had off the beaten track, in the middle of unspoilt nature. If you like walking but have no real desire to climb a mountain you will love the Glens.
On this lovely drive you will see, or not as the case may be, Loughareema, the vanishing lake, Ballypatrick Forest Drive, and Watertop Open Farm (which despite its name was closed for the winter). There is also a signpost to Corrymeela, the Christian retreat which brought Catholics and Protestants together throughout the worst years of the Troubles.
Ballycastle is famous for holding the Oul Lammas Fair every August, when the streets are full of ponies, horses dulse (edible seaweed), yellow man (hard candy) and traditional music. It was also the site of Marconi’s first radio transmission. It is the port for Rathlin Island and where Glentaisie (the Glen of Princess Taisie) and Glenshesk (Glen of the Sedges) meet.
Five miles to the west is the famous Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which spans the 60ft gap between the coast and a rocky islet where salmon fishermen snare their prey with great fixed engines (or nets) in the rushing waters below. It is only open from March to September but access to it along the North Antrim coastal path is all year round. To be honest, I was quite happy it was closed. I’ve seen it and it looked very scary. That is enough for me and, I suspect, for many others.
Still, I needed a stiff drink after all that and happily the world’s oldest licensed distillery — King James I granted the original licence to distil “aquae vitae” in 1608 —is just down the road in Bushmills. The one-hour tour is genuinely interesting, not just a worthy but dull prelude to hitting the bar for the whiskey testing. You get to see the entire process from fermentation through distillation, maturation, bottling and dispatch.
That said, the best bit is definitely the tasting. Only four out of the crowd are chosen for the tasting test so get in some class swot practise of shooting your arm into the air as soon as teacher, ahem, the guide, asks for volunteers. I thought it would be a blind test in which you had to identify blends, single malts, Scotch, Bushmills, Black Bush, bourbon and the door to the gent’s, in that order.
But instead it is simply a test of what you like. This kind of education could catch on — no right or wrong answers, just lots of shots of different whiskeys in thimble-sized plastic tumblers. When it’s all over, you get to order a proper measure of your favourite. Funnily, we all settled for a hot toddy, to refresh the palate, you understand.
What can you say about the Giant’s Causeway that hasn’t been said before? “Don’t jump on those rocks like that, Isobel, or you’ll fall in one of those puddles and get yourself soaked.” Top tip: bring a change of clothing for small children.
I suppose it’s not that surprising but my two children, oblivious to the awesome majesty of the Giant’s Causeway, showed absolutely no interest in the rocks in the distance — “This is a World Heritage Site, Ruairi” — and insisted on jumping in every puddle on the long and winding path to the rocks.
This must have been my fourth or fifth visit and it is still an amazing sight. It is as if Nature has let its imagination run riot and said, I know, let’s just pile up 40,000 symmetrical basalt columns made out of molten volcanic lava, some up to 40ft high, and stick them between this big cliff and the North Atlantic. You couldn’t make
it up.
Normally there’s something terribly twee about the fairy or folk tales associated with such places. But the idea of Finn McCool, the Irish giant, dressing up as a baby and hiding in a giant cradle to fool a bigger Scottish giant into running for his life tickles me. It’s a combination of cowardice and cunning that is somehow very Irish, mock-heroic, a bit like Christy Mahon, the playboy of the western world.
Having seen the rocks, you can then climb up the cliffpath and return to the visitors’ centre along the top of the cliff, taking in the sea view. For those less fit, the National Trust runs a bus service to the rocks and back.
You can then let the train take the strain. Local enthusiasts have restored the old narrow-gauge railway that links the Causeway to Bushmills. The return journey takes half-an-hour and the carriages (some open-sided) look out over some beautiful scenery. If you like ruins, you can also check out Dunseverick and Dunluce Castles. Now that’s what I call sea views. An estate agent couldn’t oversell their charms.
Don’t overlook nearby Whitepark Bay, the tiny, picturesque village of Portbraddan at one end and Ballintoy’s pretty harbour at the other. If you’re looking for somewhere local to stay, you’re in luck, because Bob Aisles, the owner of Whitepark Hotel, a smart but inexpensive B&B, has just been voted landlady of the Year.
Alternatively, move on the few miles to Portrush and you can lodge in the smart but informal Comfort Hotel, on the site of the old Northern Counties hotel overlooking the seafront. It has its own bar and restaurant if you don’t want to venture too far, but Portrush is blessed with a fine selection of places to dine.
Ramore, which specialises in fish, has won a lot of awards but it is at the pricier end of the market. Below it, however, is Coast, a modern but unpretentious Italian restaurant that produces excellent pizzas and pasta dishes at around a fiver,
with a decent bottle of wine for little more. They encourage you to move into the bar if you want to drink after your meal as it is understandably popular. Every town should have one.
There is loads to do in this resort, from world-class golf at Royal Portrush to swimming and ten-pin bowling at Waterworld and high-tech fun at the Dunluce Centre as well as sea angling. What more could you want?
Martin Doyle and his family travelled with the assistance of Tourism Ireland.
n Mary McBride’s,
2 Main Street, Cushendun
n Comfort Hotel, Portrush, 028 7082 6100
n Whitepark House, Ballintoy, 028 207 31482
n Giant’s Causeway Vistors’ Centre, 028 2073 1855
n Old Bushmills Distilllery, 028 2073 1521
n Glenariff Forest Park, 028 2955 6000
n Carnfunnock Country Park, 028 2827 0541
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