3 Best Sights in Northern Ireland

Off the main A2 route, the road between Cushendall and Cushendun turns into one of a Tour-de-France hilliness, so cyclists beware. Your reward, however, is the tiny jewel of a village, Cushendun, which was designed in 1912 by Clough Williams-Ellis (who also designed the famous Italianate village of Portmeirion in Wales) at the request of Ronald John McNeill, Baron Cushendun. Up sprang a series of cottages and a village square of seven houses, all done up in the Cornish taste courtesy of the Penzance-born wife of the baron. To top it all off, the baron had Glenmona House built in the regal neo-Georgian style. From this part of the coast you can see the Mull of Kintyre on the Scottish mainland. Hikes along the beachy strand have inspired poets and artists, including John Masefield. Glenmona House is now used for community and social events and next door to it in Church Lane---barely visible through the trees---the former Church of Ireland, built in 1840 and deconsecrated in 2003, reopened to the public as an arts, heritage, and information center in 2019. They hold concerts, talks, and stage exhibitions and it is worth calling in to see how the former place of worship has been transformed by the Cushendun Building Preservation Trust. The Ulster History Circle has also erected a blue plaque on the building to Moira O'Neill, a poet and novelist from Cushendun famed for her book Songs of the Glens of Antrim. The Old Church Centre is run by volunteers and is open mostly from noon to 4 pm, Friday--Sunday.

A little resort made of white limestone, Carnlough overlooks a small harbor surrounded by stone walls. The harbor can be reached by crossing over the limestone bridge from Main Street, built especially for the Marquess of Londonderry. The small harbor, once a port of call for fishermen, now shelters pleasure yachts and is a base for wildlife-watching boat trips. Carnlough is surrounded on three sides by hills that rise 1,000 feet from the sea.

Turnley's Tower—a curious, fortified square tower of red stone, built in 1820 as a curfew tower and jail for "idlers and rioters"—stands at a crossroads in the middle of Cushendall, called the capital of the Glens because it has a few more streets than the other villages nearby. The road from Waterfoot to Cushendall is barely a mile long and worth the stroll or cycle out to see the coastal caves (one of which had a resident for many years, a local woman named Anne Murray) that line the route.