Cultural Heritage of Causeway AONB
Fishing
Catching fish and shellfish along parts of the north coast has provided food and a way of life since Mesolithic times. Near the causeway, small ports and harbours have supported inshore fisheries for at least 300 years, and salmon continue to be fished at sites first recorded in the 1640s. In 1926, the small harbours of Dunseverick and Portballintrae contained twenty working boats supporting fifty-four fishermen. Now there are no full-time fishermen at these ports, largely due to declining fish stocks, increased freight charges and alternative employment ashore, but traditional salmon netting continues. |
From May to September, fixed bag nets for salmon can be seen at Port Moon and Carrick-a-Rede.
Commercial ice houses were associated with the fisheries along the north coast. Set into the hillside, their thick rubble walls insulated ice well into the summer salmon season. This could then be used as required to pack the fish for dispatch to market.
Farming
| Above the beaches and storm-tossed cliffs lies a fertile and productive farmland. Chocolate brown basaltic soils support agriculture with crops of barley and potatoes set among improved grasslands. Lush pastures are typically grazed by suckler cows, fattening cattle and sheep, though there are also a few dairy herds. Overall the landscape is open and windswept with perpetual exposure to harsh salt winds that stunt tree growth and twist hedgerow thorn bushes. Field boundaries near the coast are usually earthbanks (ditches) or dry stone walls, with hawthorn hedges becoming more typical inland. Post and wire fences are now frequently used to supplement or replace hedges and banks. |
Mining and quarrying
Not all commercial activities were sea and shore based. The more extensive inter-basaltic or red beds between the Lower, Middle and Upper Basalts contain varying amounts of iron and aluminium ores. These metal ores were mined from the 1860s to the 1920s, the peak extraction being between 1870 and 1880. The ore was shipped to processing plants in Britain. The dark basalts were quarried for road building and other uses. Outcrops of columnar basalts at various sites along the Causeway Coast were also quarried for the popular symmetrical stones used in the more decorative forms of stonemasonry. Lignite was extracted from the hillside above Ballintoy village in the 1750s, and also at this time lignite was taken near the Giant's Causeway.
Quarrying of white limestone (chalk) was carried out on a large scale at Larrybane (Ballintoy) and also near Ballintoy harbour and at Ballymagarry above the White Rocks near Portrush. Many lime kilns survive on the coast, where the burned limestone products were used for limewash and in agriculture.
