From shingle shores framed by craggy, windswept promontories to fetching coves buffeted by North Atlantic surf, you’ll discover among the best seashores on the Irish mainland close to Belfast. Given the northerly latitude of Northern Eire, nonetheless, don’t count on to be baking on sun-soaked golden sands and quenching your thirst with ice-cold cocktails.
Relatively, it is the immense surroundings, intriguing cities, nature reserves and coastal walks that lure most vacationers to the seaside. Utilizing Belfast as your base, listed below are 7 nice seashores inside driving distance of the Northern Irish capital.
Crawfordsburn Seaside & Helen’s Bay
Greatest seaside for coastal walks
Simply 20 minutes east of Belfast by automotive and pinned to the shores of Belfast Lough, Helen’s Bay has one of the standard seashores within the larger Belfast space, fringed by wildflower-topped meadows, tree-choked headlands and the lordly estates of Crawfordsburn Nation Park. Canine walkers and picnickers tucking into cones from the native ice cream van account for the majority of the footfall right here, though the gently shelving seaside accommodates braver bathers on hotter (and typically chillier) afternoons.
Begin the day at Gray Level Fort, an early Twentieth-century armed protection system used throughout WWI and WWII – look out for the distended loading gun taking intention over the Irish Sea. From right here, a scenic coastal stroll continues for over 2 miles, funneling guests towards Crawfordsburn Seaside earlier than swinging inland to the nation park. The squawk of looking seagulls is a continuing right here, with wagtails, shags, herons, dippers and guillemots additionally in attendance. Hold an eye fixed out for seals and porpoises cresting the waves.
Tyrella Seaside
Greatest seaside for clear waters
Just below an hour south of Belfast by automotive, and enclosed inside Downpatrick’s Dundrum Bay, Tyrella is an award-winner, bagging a prestigious Blue Flag accolade yearly since 2011. Sunrises and sunsets silhouette the close by Mourne Mountains, whereas the mile-long sandy expanse invitations brisk morning walks or rejuvenating dips when the tide rolls in.
Separated from inland farms by a 25-hectare (62-acre) dune system, Tyrella is a vital conservation space that is extremely indicative of Northern Eire’s coastal topography. After you’ve charted the shoreline, take into account horse driving or polo classes on the 18th-century Tyrella Home, which additionally provides room and board, or go to Downpatrick City, the supposed resting place of St Patrick and residential to a Gothic cathedral boasting conventional Celtic masonry.
Murlough Seaside
Greatest seaside for Recreation of Thrones followers
Round an hour from Belfast by automotive, the Mourne Mountains – Northern Eire’s tallest vary – stand sentinel over the shores of Murlough Seaside. Go for a stroll or jog alongside the club-shaped peninsula and its blustery shoreline, then end off with a lift of caffeine within the Imbibe backyard espresso store at Murlough Home.
The seaside connects to the Nationwide Belief-protected Murlough Bay Nature Reserve, famed for its indigenous wildflowers in spring, the orchestral calls of its warblers and cuckoos, multitudinous species of butterfly fluttering amongst the vegetation, and a 6000-year-old dune system which subsequently grew to become the filming location for Slaver’s Bay in Recreation of Thrones.
It’s additionally an amazing spot to convey the children, with a downloadable Habitat Path leaflet that transforms the reserve right into a nature-hunting quest.
White Park Bay
Greatest seaside for fossil collectors
A little bit over an hour north of Belfast by automotive, White Park Bay in Ballintoy is a standard college journey vacation spot for native geology college students. A sandy cove bridging two headlands on the Antrim Coast, its secluded locale is ideal for a soothing stroll, eschewing the crowds trudging alongside the seashores of close by Portrush.
Look out for the arched Elephant Rock, which native folklore information as a woolly mammoth consumed by a volcanic eruption, in addition to precise fossils – together with belemnites, ammonites and gryphaea shells – encrusted inside the limestone cliff faces. The seaside is a cease on the Causeway Coastal Route resulting in the Unesco-recognized Large’s Causeway, celebrated as Lonely Planet’s prime area on the earth to go to in 2018.
Whiterocks
Greatest seaside for cliff and chateau views
Because the title implies, Whiterocks – simply over an hour north of Belfast – is abutted by gleaming limestone cliff faces, with Dunluce Fortress, a crumbling medieval spoil surmounting a basalt outcrop, overlooking the seaside’s japanese fringe. It’s standard with Portrush locals and weekend revelers from Belfast, who stroll like ants in file alongside its 3-mile shoreline.
Bathers descend on the seaside on New 12 months’s Day – some as an auspicious ritual for the 12 months forward, others in an try and eradicate a hangover – whereas surfers, physique boarders and kayakers courageous the waves each day. For the most effective views, head as much as the newly constructed cliff path, and finish the journey in Portrush, the place a swathe of classy renovation tasks have rejuvenated the once-sleepy seaside city.
The West Strand
Greatest seaside for browsing
On the opposing aspect of Ramore Head, the peninsula on which Portrush was constructed, you’ll discover the West Strand – a curving, Blue Flag-awarded seaside buffeted by aggressive Atlantic waves. It’s a hotspot for Northern Eire’s surfers so you possibly can hit the native surf retailers for board and wetsuit leases.
The seaside is equally frequented by canine walkers, cyclists and joggers, who take to each the sands and the elevated promenade. Then, when lifeguards are in attendance from late June via September, West Strand turns into a hub for households and bathers.
While you’re right here, take a look at the high-quality eateries and comfy pubs in Portrush: head to Babushka Kitchen Cafe for an Ulster Fry, dine on slabs of steak on the energetic Ramore Wine Bar, or sip Guinness on the venerable Harbour Bar.
Browns Bay Seaside
Greatest seaside for solitude
A small inlet on the tip of Islandmagee, about 45 minutes northeast of Belfast, horseshoe-shaped Browns Bay is a poster boy for rural Eire. Lined in white sand and bookended by Skenaghan and Barrs Factors, it’s dotted with rough-hewn boulders mendacity on the ft of pastoral farmlands.
This is without doubt one of the most distant seashores within the nation, and weekday walkers typically discover they’ve the north-facing views of the Antrim Coast’s jutting headlands all to themselves. And in case you’re right here on the weekend, you possibly can pair your stroll with tea and a scone on the cell cafe, Secure Cease Browns Bay.
