Cushendall

The Curfew Tower

The Curfew Tower stands at the crossroads in the centre of Cushendall, five storeys of red sandstone that taper as they rise. Francis Turnly, who had made his fortune in China and bought the local estate in 1801, built it in the early nineteenth century as a place to confine idlers and rioters. He appointed a single army pensioner, Dan McBride, as guard, with orders to keep a year's provisions and a small arsenal: a musket, bayonet, pistols and a pike. The tower was seldom used to lock anyone up. It also held the village bell, rung at nine each night until the 1940s. The original bell had disappeared by the 1992–93 restoration; a London fire station provided a replacement. Since 1999 the building has housed an artists' residency.

The pubs are on Mill Street and Bridge Street, close to the tower. J. McCollam's, known to everyone as Johnny Joe's, sits at 23 Mill Street behind an L-shaped counter, with red-and-black floor tiles, fixed bench seating and three spirit casks standing in the bar-back. It runs traditional-music sessions and took a Traditional Irish Music Award in 2002 and again in 2003.

Pubs and Food on Mill and Bridge Streets

McMullan's Central Bar, at 7 Bridge Street, keeps a richly carved bar-back dated to 1883, three vertical spirit casks and a fourth pressed into service as a table, along with old advertising mirrors and etched windows. A few doors along at number 5, The Lurig Bar is family-run and given over to live sport; it is owned by Terence "Sambo" McNaughton, the former Antrim hurler, and carries a mural of the Cushendall supporter John "Wee John" McKillop.

For food, Harry's at 10 Mill Street leans on seafood. The signature is a seafood chowder served with homemade wheaten bread, and the menu runs to beer-battered cod with chunky chips and mushy peas, pan-fried salmon with champ and a pea-and-pancetta reduction, seafood linguine in white-wine sauce, and a chicken stack with bacon mash and tobacco onions. Hawthorn & Rose is a small bakehouse and gift shop where everything is baked from scratch on site: Belgian-chocolate brownies, Mars-bar cornflakes, carrot cake and cookies, with tea and coffee and a shelf of work by local makers. Donal Kearney & Sons keeps a traditional butcher's counter at 4 Mill Street, and there is a deli counter at Bradley's filling station on the Ballyeamon Road.

Woodland, Mountain and Coast

Cushendall sits at the foot of Lurigethan, where the River Dall reaches the Sea of Moyle; its Irish name, Cois Abhann Dhalla, means the foot of the River Dall. On clear days the Mull of Kintyre is visible from the shingle and pebble shore of Cushendall Beach. From High Street, short surfaced paths thread Cottage Wood, ten acres of broadleaved trees where red squirrels are regularly seen; nearby are two play areas and picnic tables with barbecues.

A mile north stand the ruins of Layd Old Church, a thirteenth-century Franciscan foundation that served as the parish church from 1306 until the end of the eighteenth century and became the chief burial place of the MacDonnell clan. A memorial cross there honours Dr James MacDonnell, the physician known as the Father of Belfast Medicine.

Golf and Transport Connections

The nine-hole golf club, founded in 1937, has the River Dall out of bounds on seven of its holes, and its crest carries the four swans of the Children of Lir. Buses run from Ballymena on route 150, which comes in along the coast to Mill Street. The A2 Coast Road links Cushendall with Cushendun; the A43 runs inland through Glenariff.

The Railway That Stopped Short

The Ballymena, Cushendall and Red Bay Railway never reached Cushendall. Its Retreat–Ballymena line operated from 1876 to 1937, while the planned extension downhill into Glenballyeamon was abandoned because of steep gradients. Parkmore’s concrete replacement station building was built in 1921 and still stands near the junction of Ballyeamon Road and Glenariff Road.