Atlantic resort, headland town
Portrush
A mile-long peninsula where harbour pubs, broad strands, surf culture and Victorian resort history meet the open Atlantic.
- Best for
- Beaches, headland walks and Victorian resort history
- Give it
- A flexible half day
- Don't miss
- Ramore Head and the long West and East strands
Photo: Andrew Gray · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
A lively resort with the Atlantic always close
Portrush works best when you move between its harbour, headland, strands and surviving resort buildings rather than treating the beach as the whole story.
Start with the harbour quarter, where historic pub interiors and a community brewery give the town character beyond the seafront. Ramore Head supplies the short coastal circuit, while West Strand, East Strand and Whiterocks open out the longer Atlantic landscape. A seasonal marine centre, indoor fun park and surf sessions add credible family options.
Where to go
Places in Portrush
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Harbour Bar
A compact ground-floor Front Bar and livelier upstairs Gin Bar, with a two-room historic interior noted for red-tile floors, old Bass advertising and a framed Guinness label.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 75 minutes
- Locality
- on the harbour frontage
- Access
- Ground-floor wheelchair access is confirmed by the operator.
Ramore Head
A short paved and cliff-path circuit with views towards the Skerries, Donegal hills, Rathlin and, on clear days, Islay; it passes the Devil's Washtub and the site of a Second World War Y-station.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 75 minutes
- Locality
- around the recreation grounds and Lansdowne shore
Portrush Coastal Zone
A free DAERA marine centre with whalebones, shipwreck material, local geology, a preserved thresher shark, aquaria and a wildlife-viewing platform.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- 8 Bath Road
- Access
- The DAERA centre is fully accessible and opens seasonally.
Food & drink
1 placeLacada Brewery Taproom
A community-owned working brewery and taproom with 19 rotating taps, tours and an on-site shop, built from a father-and-son brew kit into a co-operative with more than 400 co-owners.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- 7A Victoria Street
- Access
- Children are allowed with an adult; the operator says well-behaved dogs receive water and treats.
Walks & outdoors
3 placesWest Strand
Also known as Mill Strand, this sandy beach runs from the harbour to Black Rocks with a promenade used by walkers, runners and cyclists.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- from the harbour to Black Rocks
East Strand
A principal sandy beach with an initial promenade and then open sand, exposed to the Atlantic below Royal Portrush.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 75 minutes
- Locality
- east of the old centre below Royal Portrush
- Access
- RNLI lifeguarding is seasonal; check patrol dates, tides and conditions rather than assuming cover.
Whiterocks
A beach below chalk and limestone cliffs that the Atlantic has cut into arches, stacks, coves and caves.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- east below Royal Portrush and the chalk cliffs
History & heritage
1 place
Holy Trinity Parish Church
A large Gothic Revival church of dark local stone with a three-stage square clock tower, traceried windows, timber king-post roof, gallery and a well-preserved interior.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- opposite the former Belfast Bank
Things to do
2 placesCurry's Fun Park
Northern Ireland's largest indoor fun park, with the Cyclone, dodgems and arcade games on the site run by Barry's until 2021 and reopened by the Curry family in 2022.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the former Barry's Amusements site
Portrush Surf School
A surf school offering beginner group lessons, family sessions, children's camps, stand-up paddleboarding and giant group SUP, with private changing rooms and hot showers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 120 minutes
- Locality
- operating from Portrush Yacht Club
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Three ways to explore Portrush
Signature outings
Meet Portrush's community brewery
Visit Lacada's working brewery and taproom for rotating taps, tours and the story of a father-and-son brew kit that grew into a co-operative with more than 400 co-owners.
Look up at Holy Trinity
Study the dark local stone, Gothic Revival tracery and square clock tower of a church repeatedly enlarged as Portrush's resort population grew.
Find Whiterocks' sea-cut forms
Follow the coast to pale cliffs shaped by the Atlantic into arches, stacks, coves and caves above the strand.
The town story
Portrush Town Guide
Harbour characters, Atlantic strands and the surviving fabric of a resort that has repeatedly remade itself.
The harbour and a town remade
The Harbour Bar keeps treats behind the counter for visiting dogs. A long-serving barman called Willie hands them out and photographs the recipients, and is on record explaining his order of priorities: "I do humans only if I have to." The bar itself has red-tile floors, old Bass advertising and a framed Guinness label from the years when Guinness was bottled on the premises, a practice that ended in the late 1950s. The compact Front Bar sits at ground level; a livelier gin bar runs upstairs. Its two-room interior carries two stars in the national inventory of historic pub interiors, a rating for places of very special national historic interest.
That makes it a useful fixed point, because Portrush is a town that changed a great deal, repeatedly. The old centre occupies a peninsula about a mile long, ending at Ramore Head, with the harbour tucked on its southern flank. West Strand curves away southwest towards Portstewart; East Strand and Curran Strand sweep east under the dunes and the fairways of Royal Portrush. You are never far from open Atlantic, and the town has always sold that fact — a 1929 council notice promised air "wonderfully invigorating and far-famed as the best of tonics."
The eating and drinking clusters around the harbour. Next to the Harbour Bar, the Harbour Bistro grills over a wood fire: chicken Caesar salad, Royal fish pie, seafood thermidor, fish and chips, bang-bang chicken and the Harbour burger, with steaks supplied by JD Hart & Sons. A short walk inland, Kiwi's Brew Bar occupies part of the old Majestic Cinema, an Art Deco house that opened in 1939 with 792 seats. It now does burgers, pizzas and dirty fries, and a plate of hot wings named Psycho Wings that are built on Carolina Reaper sauce; the meat comes from Etherson's, whose butchery team won the World Butchers' Challenge in 2018.
Pubs, cafés and food on foot
For traditional music there is the Springhill Bar on Causeway Street, a family pub with a large stone fireplace and regular sessions, a few hundred yards from East Strand. The Quays, opposite the railway station, runs a covered and fully enclosed beer garden that welcomes dogs, and a kitchen that turns out beef-and-Guinness pie, steak, and cod and chips. The Station Bar occupies the double-height interior of the 1893 terminus building itself. If you want to see the beer made, Lacada Brewery on Victoria Street is a community-owned co-operative that grew from a father-and-son brew kit to more than four hundred co-owners; its taproom has nineteen rotating taps, and its core beers include West Bay Citra Pale Ale, Rathlin Gold, East the Beast IPA and the Utopian Stout. It also brews kombucha and sells it by the growler. Well-behaved dogs get water and treats there too.
The Safehouse Café Bar, further along on Main Street, is worth a look for the building alone: a former Belfast Bank branch of 1898, where the manager's family once lived above the vault. A steel safe-room door survives, and the kitchen does stone-baked pizzas and cocktails.
Beyond the pubs, the town is well stocked with places to eat on your feet. The White House has anchored Main Street since 1891 as an independent department store — fashion, homeware, furniture, toys — with an upper-floor café that has a veranda and a sea view, and a reputation for its spiced scones. Morelli's sells award-winning ice cream, its vanilla decorated with national shields and its back catalogue including a Pistachio Swirl and a Clotted Cream with Irish Black Butter. Tom Tom's Bakery on Causeway Street does sausage rolls, soda bread, traybakes and pastries. Ocean Deli on Main Street makes sandwiches to order and sells apple tart, chicken-liver pâté, minestrone and pulled-beef pitta; next door, MyPie runs its own butchery and bakery and turns out hot pies and sausage rolls. Follow Coast, opened in 2023 by Lesley and Mark McCaughan, roasts its coffee locally and takes dogs inside. Babushka Kitchen Café occupies the former lifeboat station out on the South Pier and leans hard on local suppliers. For fish and chips, Kraken adds calamari, jumbo prawns and seafood-loaded fries to the standard order. Out towards Whiterocks, the Two Twenty Coffee House does brunch — smoked salmon on sourdough, buttermilk pancakes, a bruschetta mozzarella flatbread — and hangs work by local makers on its walls.
Stone, strands and Ramore Head
The buildings repay a slow walk. Holy Trinity, the large Gothic Revival church of dark local stone with a square clock tower, stands opposite the former Belfast Bank; a local historian judged the group around it "the best composition in the town — almost the town square." The Town Hall of 1872 is a red-brick Scots-Baronial pile with crow-stepped gables and a turret, and the old public-house frontage at 39–41 Main Street keeps mosaic lettering marking the separate entrances of a former hotel, shop and bar.
The beaches are the reason many people come. West Strand runs about a kilometre from the harbour to Black Rocks along a promenade favoured by walkers, runners and cyclists. East Strand starts with roughly a mile of promenade before giving way to open sand under Royal Portrush; the RNLI provides seasonal lifeguard cover there, though patrol dates and tides need checking rather than assuming. This is exposed Atlantic coast, not a sheltered cove, and the wind is part of the deal.
For a shorter leg-stretch, the Ramore Head circuit loops out from town around the recreation grounds and the Lansdowne shore, with views to the low rocky Skerries, the Donegal hills, Rathlin and, on a clear day, Islay. The path passes the Devil's Washtub and the site of a Second World War listening station that intercepted enemy transmissions for Bletchley Park. The recreation grounds themselves were recently rebuilt across nearly four hectares of the headland, with an adventure play park, a bowling green and a Changing Places toilet.
Coast walks, family fallbacks and the railway
Walkers with more time can follow the coast east from the harbour, circling Ramore Head, passing the old salmon fishery at Porteen and the surviving Arcadia building, then striking out along East Strand and up onto the chalk cliffs at Whiterocks, which the Atlantic has cut into arches, stacks and caves. The route continues past the ruin of Dunluce Castle — a MacDonnell stronghold on a basalt outcrop linked to the mainland by a bridge — and on towards Bushmills, about six miles east, where Old Bushmills works a whiskey licence claim dating to 1608. It all forms part of the Causeway Coast Way, which threads thirty-odd miles of beach, cliff and lane between Portstewart and Ballycastle. West of town, the Port Path leads the gentler way along West Strand towards Portstewart and its National Trust strand, a natural half-day out.
Families have plenty to fall back on when the weather turns, which it will. Curry's Fun Park, on the amusement site that Barry's ran from 1925 until 2021, is the largest indoor fun park in Northern Ireland, with the Cyclone, dodgems and arcades. The Portrush Coastal Zone on Bath Road is a free marine centre with whalebones, shipwreck material, a preserved thresher shark and aquaria of starfish, crabs and small sharks, plus a viewing platform where seals and porpoises turn up. Portrush Surf School runs beginner and family lessons and stand-up paddleboarding from the Yacht Club; its head coach, Martin "TK" Kelly, is an eleven-time Irish national bodyboard champion. From the harbour, Aquaholics runs wildlife boat trips out towards the Skerries.
The town owes its scale to the railway, which arrived in 1855 and turned a fishing village into a Victorian resort within a generation. For a few decades an electric tramway ran from Eglinton Street along the coast to the Giant's Causeway, powered by hydroelectric turbines; it opened in 1883 and closed in 1949, and something of the same disappearing act happened to the grand hotels. The Northern Counties, with its seaweed baths and oak-lined rooms, burned in 1990. Castle Erin, a hydropathic hotel selling seawater cures to Victorian visitors, was demolished in 2006. The great 1893 station lost its train shed and its three-hundred-seat dining room, keeping only its clock tower and mock-Tudor frontage, now in shop use.
Championship golf, connections and a royal visitor
Golf runs through all of it. The club began as the County Club in 1888, became Royal Portrush in 1895, and has staged the Open Championship three times — in 1951, 2019 and 2025 — the only venue outside Great Britain ever to host it. Fred Daly, born on Causeway Street, was the first Irishman to win the Open, at Hoylake in 1947; a blue plaque marks the family home. The town has kept turning out characters since. James Nesbitt worked at Barry's as a bingo caller and occasional brakeman on the Big Dipper before the acting took hold, and still owns a house here. Mark Ashton, who grew up in Portrush, co-founded Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners during the 1984 strike, the group later dramatised in the film Pride.
Getting here is straightforward. The station sits in the centre on Eglinton Street, step-free with a ticket machine, at the end of the branch from Coleraine, where you change for Belfast and Derry~Londonderry; trains run broadly hourly, though it's worth checking Translink for current times. The A29 comes up from Coleraine and the A2 follows the coast east past Whiterocks towards Bushmills, and the 140 bus links Portrush with Portstewart and Coleraine along the way.
One visitor left a smaller mark than the golf. In July 1877, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil passed through on his way to the Giant's Causeway, bought some specimen stones and ordered a hundred portraits from a local photographer. After a Mrs Kane served him a cup of coffee, he gave her grapes.
Stay around Causeway Coast
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Causeway Coast, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
Third-party photographs are credited to their named creators and reused under the linked Creative Commons licence or public-domain dedication. Travel Fox stores an optimised local copy; the file-specific changes and any browser-applied display crop are disclosed below. Reused photographs link both to the Wikimedia Commons source record and to the declared source image; Travel Fox's own photographs carry no such record and are marked as ours. These image licences do not cover Travel Fox text, branding or page design.
- File:Northern Ireland - Holy Trinity Parish Church, Main St. Portrush Co.antrim - 20230821112320.jpg — photograph by Andrew Gray; Own work. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
- File:Beach near Whiterocks, Portrush - geograph.org.uk - 3677663.jpg — photograph by Gareth James; Beach near Whiterocks, Portrush by Gareth James. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Harbour Bar — discovernorthernireland.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Lacada Brewery Taproom — lacadabrewery.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Holy Trinity Parish Church — apps.communities-ni.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- West Strand — visitportrush.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- East Strand — rnli.org other published source record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Ramore Head — daera-ni.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Portrush Coastal Zone — daera-ni.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Curry's Fun Park — visitcausewaycoastandglens.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Portrush Surf School — portrushsurfschool.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Whiterocks — visitcausewaycoastandglens.com operator, sector body or destination organisation