County Antrim - Towns

Ballycarry is a village which can trace its roots back 1000 years to an early Christian ecclesiastical settlement. The village has close links with the Plantation of Ulster and on the Dalways Bawn Road, at Bellahill, can be seen a fie example of an early English Plantation Bawn Farmhouse.

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Ballycastle is an attractive market town and the port for reaching Rathlin Island; it is noted for its Lammas Fair held over the summer bank holiday at the end of August and dating from 1606. It is also a well-known seaside resort.

It is beautifully situated where Glenshesk and Glentaise converge at Ballycastle Bay. The town proper is 1 1/2 miles (2 km) inland and is connected with the smaller seaside part by a broad tree-planted avenue. At the seafront a picnic site is a memorial to Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, who in 1899 made his first successful cross-water transmissions between Ballycastle and Rathlin Island.

The old stone harbour long since silted in now houses a superb Pavilion, ten of the finest grass tennis courts in Ireland (two floodlit) and an excellent bowling green.

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Ballyclare is situated to the north of Belfast. The Ulster way passes by the town as it begins its long meander through the north of Ulster. Nearby, Woodburn and North Carn Forest provides pleasant country walks.

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Four Miles (6km) north of Larne the road rounds Ballygalley Head (303 feet), off which on a rock in the sea are the remains of an ancient fortress, Carne Castle. Near by at the modern village of Ballygalley is Ballygalley Castle (now a hotel, complete with ghost in the Dungeon Bar), a fortified house built by James Shaw of Greenock in 1625. An ideal centre for exploring the beautiful Antrim Glens.

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Ballymena, in the pleasant valley of the River Braid, is an important borough with linen and other industries. It is situated in central Antrim at the convergence of many roads, which give ready access to all parts of the north-east of Ireland. The Saturday market dates back to 1626. Roger Casement went to school here.

Most of the town is built on land of the estate received by William Adair of Kinhilt, Scotland, from Charles 1. About 1732 the Adairs and another family named Hickey introduced the linen industry, to which the town chiefly owes its development. In 1798 a body of United Irishmen held Balllymena for three days, after defeating British forces in a battle in the streets.

Eight miles (13km) west of Ballymena, Slemish Mountain rises prominently on the South side of the Braid valley. This was the scene of St Patrick's six-year captivity as a youth. The shrine of St Patrick is a place of pilgrimage. There are now picnic sites and a scenic drive on the mountain.

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