The marina at Glenarm sits inside the old limestone harbour, once used to quarry and ship out the local stone. The harbour still has toilets, showers, laundry and Wi-Fi for anyone who arrives by water. This is the first of the nine Glens of Antrim as you drive north from Larne, the point where a wooded glen and its salmon river come down to a small bay on the North Channel. On a clear day the Mull of Kintyre and Jura stand up across the water.
Toberwine Street runs up from the harbour towards the village, and two pubs survive almost side by side near its foot: the Coast Road Inn, a small traditional local close to the marina, and the Bridge End Tavern at number one, known to everyone as Stevey's. The same street holds a former courthouse, now Glenarm Baptist Church, and the old Antrim Arms Hotel, now a private house.
For daytime food, Cove at 2 Castle Street is the obvious stop, a dog-friendly coffee shop that sits people in among local art and ceramics. The kitchen does sourdough toasties, homemade soup, all-day breakfast bagels and baps, Greek yoghurt bowls and its own bakes and cakes.
The castle, at the edge of the village, has its own places to eat and shop. The tea room, in what used to be the estate's mushroom house, cooks Chef Sean Moran's menu around Glenarm Shorthorn Beef and Glenarm Organic Salmon; the Castle Shop sells the beef and a smoked version of the salmon to take home. Nearby, Granny Shaw's Fudge Factory, run by Glen and Rhonda Houston, hand-cuts kettle-churned fudge made with Irish butter, in vanilla and salted caramel and chocolate but also bubblegum, Irn-Bru and raspberry ripple.
The four-acre walled garden was laid out in the 1820s to grow fruit and vegetables and has been brought back with restored Victorian glasshouses, orchard compartments and a spiral grassy mount. It won Historic Houses' Garden of the Year in 2023. Through summer 2026 children under twelve go free into the walled garden, the woodland walk and the heritage centre.
The walking suits most legs. The Coastal Path is a level 1.5-kilometre route beside black-and-white shingle, easy enough for prams and wheelchairs, with seals offshore and dolphins depending on the time of year. The Red Squirrel Trail loops two kilometres through Glenarm Forest past feeders, a waterfall and wild garlic; red squirrels were introduced here in the 1970s. For families, the play park has a sea-going theme, with a large timber play ship and dolphin springers, and holds a William Keown Trust Prestige Access award for its accessible design.
St Patrick's, the Church of Ireland parish church, was built between about 1763 and 1769 and is reckoned Ireland's earliest ecclesiastical example of Strawberry Hill "gothick", with a castellated tower, an octagonal spire, a Benson of Whitehaven clock dated 1759 and, in the churchyard, the ruins of a Franciscan friary founded in 1465. Shane O'Neill is reputedly buried there without his head. Thackeray, passing through in 1843, thought it "grave looking" but allowed it a "beautiful steeple".
The steepest of the walks, Artie's Way, climbs out of the village by the old mill waterway to views of the village, castle and bay. Arthur O'Hara made it by pushing barrow-loads of beach stone uphill, and residents still tend the planting and seats along it.