Qualla: Portstewart https://qualla.com/portstewart 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: Portstewart https://qualla.com/portstewart Portstewart: Introduction https://qualla.com/portstewart/ The Cromies refused the railway. In the mid-19th century, when steam tracks were being laid down every coast in the British Isles, the landowning family that ran Portstewart drew the line at their Sabbath. Trains meant Sunday traffic, and Sunday traffic meant the noise of commerce on a day they kept holy. So the station went a mile inland, in a field beside the village of Cromore, and the gentry of Portstewart kept their crescent promenade quiet. That single decision shaped everything that came after. The grand Victorian hotels never quite arrived. The day-trippers thinned. And Portstewart became, instead of a railway resort, a quieter sort of place - the kind that still feels, on a windy afternoon with the Atlantic crashing against the rocks, like a town that chose its own pace.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Portstewart: The Founder and the Name Before https://qualla.com/portstewart/ John Cromie founded the town in 1792 and named it after his maternal ancestors, the Stewarts of Ballylesse. But the Irish had been here long before, and they called the place Port na Binne Uaine - the harbour of the green peak - a name still preserved in the offshore townland of ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-the-founder-and-the-name-before.mp3 0:06 2 full Portstewart: The Convent on the Cliff https://qualla.com/portstewart/ The Gothic mansion at the western end of the promenade started life in 1834 as O'Hara's Castle - a landlord's folly perched dramatically on the edge of a basalt cliff. In 1917 the Dominican Order bought it and turned it into a school. Dominican College still occupies that spectac...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-the-convent-on-the-cliff.mp3 0:06 3 full Portstewart: Red Sails and Champion Links https://qualla.com/portstewart/ Jimmy Kennedy grew up here. In the 1930s, watching one of Portstewart's sunsets stain the Atlantic the colour of a wine-press, he wrote 'Red Sails in the Sunset' - a song that went around the world, recorded by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Fats Domino, lifted by the same light ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-red-sails-and-champion-links.mp3 0:06 4 full Portstewart: The North West 200 https://qualla.com/portstewart/ Every May, Portstewart turns into the loudest place in Ireland. The North West 200 motorcycle race runs a triangular circuit through Portrush, Portstewart and Coleraine, with bikes routinely topping 200 mph on roads that, the rest of the year, take you to the chip shop. It is one...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-the-north-west-200.mp3 0:06 5 full Portstewart: An Integrated Town https://qualla.com/portstewart/ In a region defined by sectarian division, Portstewart is unusual. The religious demographics match Northern Ireland's as a whole - roughly half Protestant background, a third Catholic - and community relations are reportedly good. The Strand ward is among the most affluent in th...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/g/1/portstewart-wp/gcg1-portstewart-an-integrated-town.mp3 0:06 6 full