Built Heritage of Causeway AONB

Portrush Coastal Zone

Portrush Coastal Zone is located next to the shore between Portandoo Harbour and the Blue Pool and beside Portrush Nature reserve. The centre is operated by Northern Ireland Environment agency and it is the only place where you can dabble in a living rock pool without getting your feet wet and find anything from a limpet to a lobster. Walk around the displays or sit back and watch a film or video in the audio-visual threatre. The Centre is open over the summer months but contact the staff at 8 Bath Road, Portrush, tel. 028 7082 3600 to check opening hours or for group bookings.

Dunluce Castle

Spectacularly sited beside the coast road (A2) between Portrush and Bushmills. The dun name and rock-cut souterrain suggest early Christian period occupation on the rocky headland. The earliest parts of the castle are probably fourteenth century but it is not documented until the sixteenth century, when it was in the hands of the MacQuillans and later the MacDonnells. Badly damaged in an artillery attack by the English Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrott, in 1584, the castle was repaired and extended by Sorley Boy and James MacDonnell, but decayed from the seventeenth century onwards. The site is now maintained by Northern Ireland Environment Agency and a visitor centre has been provided. The castle ruins and grounds are open to the public.

'Old Bushmills' Distillery

Bushmills DistilleryBushmills village is situated on the banks of the River Bush, in the midst of a lush barley growing area and close to an abundant source of peat. The combination of clear water, good quality barley and peat to fuel the kilns and stills provided the distiller with all that is needed to practice his art. Not surprising then that what is claimed to be world's oldest whiskey distillery still in operation, is situated here.
Today barley is drawn from a much wider area and peat is no longer a major fuel source, but the water from St. Columbs Rill has been constantly used for the production of whiskey since distilling first began in the village. This small stream, which is a tributary of the River Bush, flows through the distillery and provides all the water used in the production of 'Old Bushmills' whiskeys. The special character of this water derives largely from the fact that it flows over a combination of peat and basalt.

Dunseverick Castle

This castle depended for defence on being perched at the edge of a promontory. Its name, Dun Sohairce, is said to be derived from the chieftain who first fortified it.
One of the five roads that radiated from Tara, ancient capital of Ireland, terminated here and the name occurs in many of the ancient Irish tales.
It was stormed by the Danes in 870 and 924AD. Later it became the focal point in the MacDonnell's kingdom of Dalriada which covered north Antrim and Argyllshire.

White Park Bay

A magnificent natural amphitheatre of limestone, with a mile of golden strand, flanked on the west by Port Braddan's snug harbour and on the east by a 'raised beach' (with caves) leading on to Ballintoy Harbour. On the top of a small hillock near the centre of the bay is a small circular cairn 36 feet in diameter. Two Neolithic sites have been explored, one just west south west of this cairn and the other near the east end of the bay.

Larrybane

Larrybane (the ancient white site) was a magnificient headland of white limestone which was once occupied as a promontory fort c 800AD. Owing to the weakness of planning law in the 1950s the headland was quarried away, but the National Trust acquired the land and also the neighbouring basalt quarry and has made this stretch of coast available to the public.