Robbo's Corner is a bend on the public road through Armoy, named for the rider Mervyn Robinson, and directly opposite it stands the Armada Bar and Restaurant. On race weekend it becomes part of a 3.03-mile circuit that motorcycles take anti-clockwise past Church Bends, Dunlop's Leap and Kennedy's Corner, on the same Hillside, Glenshesk and Lagge roads where the Armoy Armada tested their bikes in the late 1970s.
The Armada, at 167 Hillside Road, is a bar, restaurant and six-room B&B, with a dining room that seats up to sixty-five. The kitchen runs to a pepper chicken stack with champ and onion rings, chicken Maryland with bacon, pineapple and a banana fritter, seafood chowder, a goat's-cheese tart and a rump-steak ciabatta, with fish and chips for anyone who wants it plain.
On Main Street, the Rooks Nest is a traditional wet-led pub, with bar games and a landlady whose welcome gets mentioned about as often as the Guinness.
A little outside the village on Fivey Road, the Scenic Inn is family-run, with live music at weekends. It took Northern Ireland Pub Food of the Year and Community Bar of the Year in 2017, and since 2013 has raised more than £200,000 for local charities. The food leans to sizzling pepper chicken, a chicken stack with champ and pepper sauce, BBQ-brisket nachos, a taco trio, chicken-and-chorizo penne and sticky-toffee pudding. "I've never had a bad meal at the Scenic Inn," writes one regular, Lauren C; "the food is always fantastic, and the staff couldn't be nicer, or more helpful."
For provisions, Ballykenver Farmshop sits on Amanda Hanna's dairy farm, worked for two hundred years and grazing 180 grass-fed cows. She makes jams, chutneys, curds, sauces and puddings in small batches, and the shelves carry local cheese, bread, produce and honey. The business started as "Jam at the Doorstep," when she sold jars from a box at her back door; you can now book in to make your own jam, chutney or lemon curd.
St Patrick's Church of Ireland stands on a site that tradition links to Bishop Olcan, placed here by St Patrick. The present basalt church is largely nineteenth-century, built in 1820 and 1846, but beside it is the medieval round tower: roofless sandstone, ten and a half metres of it, with no windows and a single tall, narrow, round-headed doorway. A salmon-shaped weathervane refers to the fishing on the River Bush, and the east window, Faith, Hope and Charity, is by Henry Holiday.
The Bush runs through the village, and Armoy Riverside Park gives you flat, off-road paths beside it, with a picnic area and a play park. The playground on Church Road was rebuilt in 2023 with accessible equipment, including a ground-level trampoline and a roundabout. For something longer, the Breen Forest Trail is a five-and-a-half-mile circuit from the Altarichard car park that climbs Croaghan, and the Moyle Way — a two-day upland route between Ballycastle and Waterfoot — follows part of the old Ballycastle Railway trackbed, though its Croaghan section is currently closed because of wildfire risk. That line ran seventeen miles and closed in 1950.
Armoy sits among rolling hills with Knocklayd rising to the north, on the A44 between Ballymoney and Ballycastle. The nearest train is at Ballymoney, about eight miles away on the Belfast–Derry line, and the Ulsterbus 178 stops at the Diamond, though not on Sundays. The Dark Hedges are close by, an avenue of beeches the Stuart family planted around 1775 to impress anyone arriving at Gracehill House. Ballycastle and its harbour are five or so miles off, and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, first strung up by salmon fishermen in 1755, is along the coast at Ballintoy.
In the riverside park there is a monument to the Armada — Robinson, Joey Dunlop, Frank Kennedy and Jim Dunlop, who raced together for only three seasons. Big Frank stood over six feet and once, it is said, rode pillion with two broken legs. Jim, the last of the four, unveiled the monument himself. It is shaped like a motorcycle.