Qualla: Ballycastle https://qualla.com/ballycastle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Ballycastle https://qualla.com/ballycastle Ballycastle: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Most visitors to the north Antrim coast do exactly the same loop. They take a bus from Belfast to the Giant's Causeway, walk on the basalt columns, snap a photo on the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, drive south through the Dark Hedges, and call it a day. Ballycastle sits a few miles east of all that, slightly off the tourist conveyor belt. The town is named for a castle that no longer exists, buried somewhere beneath Castle Street. The town's real treasures - Fair Head, Rathlin Island, the Lammas Fair, a foot ferry to Scotland - are quieter than the headline attractions and, for that reason, considerably better.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballycastle: Two Sea Routes Out https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Ballycastle is one of the very few places where you can board a boat for either Scotland or one of Ireland's offshore islands. The Rathlin Island Ferry runs four times daily to the L-shaped island visible six miles north of the harbour. The crossing takes thirty minutes and is on...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-two-sea-routes-out.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballycastle: Marconi's Spire https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Down at the marina, a stone monument near the ferry ticket office commemorates a piece of communications history that does not get enough credit. In 1898, Guglielmo Marconi - then a twenty-four-year-old Italian inventor whose mother Annie Jameson was a daughter of the Dublin whis...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-marconis-spire.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballycastle: Fair Head and Its Climbers https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Three miles east of town rises Fair Head, a wall of dolerite cliffs up to 300 feet high running for three miles along the coast. The rock is the same igneous material as the Giant's Causeway but here it stands in cyclopean organ-pipe columns rather than the famous hexagonal slabs...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-fair-head-and-its-climbers.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballycastle: Were You Ever at the Fair? https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Two days every August, on the Monday and Tuesday closest to the end of the month, the whole town turns into a market. The Ould Lammas Fair has been held in some form here since 1606, originally a sheep and cattle fair tied to the Lammas harvest festival of 1 August. Today it draw...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-were-you-ever-at-the-fair.mp3 0:06 5 full Ballycastle: Knocklayde and the Glens https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Behind the town, the heather-covered mass of Knocklayde Mountain rises to 1,685 feet, crowned by Carn na Truagh, the Cairn of Sorrow, a Neolithic stone mound whose name no one has fully explained. From the summit on a clear day, you can see the whole of Ballycastle, the long swee...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-knocklayde-and-the-glens.mp3 0:06 6 full Ballycastle: Other Castles on Other Headlands https://qualla.com/ballycastle/ Ballycastle has lost its own castle but the coast around it is studded with ruined fortifications. Three miles west on a limestone headland sits Kinbane Castle, the gnarled two-storey remains of a 1547 MacDonnell fort, ascended by steps cut into the cliff and offering one of the ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/d/ballycastle-wk/gcgd-ballycastle-other-castles-on-other-headlands.mp3 0:06 7 full