Portballintrae

Harbour, Bay and Salmon Rock

The Porthole Bar keeps an open peat fire going, and it faces the harbour with the Atlantic just beyond it. The two dishes it is known for are fresh bay chowder and Guinness-braised beef, and the drinks list leans local: four gins are made in Portballintrae itself, one of them carrying the name of the cook Paula McIntyre. It is the bar of the Bayview Hotel, and it serves as a popular meeting place.

The village sits at the mouth of the River Bush, wrapped around a sheltered horseshoe bay. A few fishing boats still work out of the harbour, though pleasure craft have increasingly replaced working boats. Across the water are Runkerry Headland and Runkerry House, and behind Bushfoot Strand lies an old dune system.

Salmon Rock is the beach in the centre of the village, small and enclosed, with rocks at either end and more offshore. It comes with picnic areas, free parking, toilets and disabled facilities, and it draws families and small children. Swimming is discouraged, the conditions being difficult and the beach unguarded, so anyone set on a proper swim goes to Whiterocks, about three and a half miles west. Dogs are restricted between 1 June and 15 September.

Clubhouse, Makers and the Causeway Walk

Up at the golf club, the Bushfoot Clubhouse runs a Sunday carvery, curry nights, an Ulster fry and homemade pizzas you can take away, and visitors calling in for food are welcome. Bushfoot Golf Club has been going since 1890; its nine holes are played from different tees to make an eighteen-hole, par-70 round. The Portballintrae Boat Club serves drinks and shows sport, but you sign in with a member, so it is not a walk-in.

For provisions there is Today's Local on Beach Road, beside the beach facilities. The village hall hosts a regular artisan food and craft market, with jams and chutneys, baked goods, plants, jewellery, skincare and woodcraft from Northern Irish makers; entry and parking are free.

The walk most people take goes from the seafront car park to the Giant's Causeway, about four miles there and back. It crosses the River Bush on the footbridge known locally as the Threequarter, then follows boardwalk and dune beside the old heritage railway, passes Runkerry House, and climbs onto the clifftops around Runkerry Head. The surfaces get muddy and the cliff edges are unprotected, but the whole section is off-road, and the Causeway itself is only about a mile and a third off.

Armada Finds and Lissanduff Earthworks

In 1588 the Spanish Armada warship Girona went down off this coast. In May 1967 the first of some twelve thousand recovered objects was landed at Portballintrae harbour: gold and silver coins, jewellery, silver plate, a bronze cannon. Robert Sténuit's team had located the wreck that year, and much of the collection now sits in the Ulster Museum.

Above the village are the Lissanduff earthworks, two large banked enclosures, one built around a natural spring. Their date and purpose have never been settled. The official assessment is only that they are, in the words of the Department for Communities, "certainly not 'ordinary' raths." They are free to walk into, though access is occasionally restricted for works.

The Tramway and Seaside Heritage

The tramway that once ran along this shore opened in 1883 as the first in the world powered by hydroelectricity. It carried Belfast Blitz evacuees and wartime workers before closing in 1949, and a tourist railway now traces part of the route from Bushmills.

Seaport Lodge, Georgian and dating from around 1770, was built as a bathing lodge and summer residence for the Leslie family; in 1832 the village amounted to a handful of houses lived in mainly by pilots. The Old Coastguard Cottages, a terrace of three with a square watchtower, went up in the 1870s.

Connections Beyond the Harbour

Old Bushmills Distillery, working since 1608, is a mile and a half away, and Dunluce Castle stands on its cliff about a mile and two-thirds in the other direction. The nearest ordinary railway station is at Portrush, a little over four miles off; the B145 links the village to the coast road, and buses stop at the Bayview Hotel.

The working boats share the harbour with the pleasure craft, and children play on Salmon Rock below the village.