There are nine Glens, each with a character of its own. Hugging the shore, travelling over towering headlands, weaving under bridges and arches, winding past bays, sandy beaches and strange rock formations, the Antrim coast road skirts them all, and drops in one the distinctive, pastel-painted villages at their feet. Fields of patchworked green follow the contours of hills above isolated whitewashed farmhouses. This is a landscape of bright yellow broom and golden gorse, of red fuchsia hedges and wild pink foxgloves, fast-running streams and waterfalls, dropping straight, hanging like curtains on green-covered cliffs.



Majestic...

Quiet, narrow roads follow the lush valleys inland. Climbing, winding and dipping among trees and rocky hillsides close-cropped by sheep, they reach high, wild, windswept moorland where raptors swoop and hooded crows peck over turf-cutters’ ditches. Here you get a sense of how isolated these glens must have been before the building of the coast road in the mid-19th century. Known as ‘queen of the glens’, majestic, forested Glenariff is dark with fir and graceful larch, and patched with red-branched dogwood. Fabulous walks offer views back down the long valley to the sea and lead you to waterfalls that squeeze through banks thick with ferns to cascade over lichen-robed rocks.



Tranquil…

In spring, Glendun is swept with primroses and swathed in bluebells. A salmon and trout-rich river tumbles through it. Peaty waters flow to the sea at tranquil Cushendun, where the white cottages were built by Clough Williams-Ellis of Portmeirion fame. Small boats bob in the sheltered harbour, a pretty beach curves into a cove and a secret house, reached by a rock tunnel, can be discovered among sea caves. The poet John Masefield, who married a local girl, honeymooned at Cushendun. The village was also home to Moira O’Neill, ‘poetess of the Glens’ and mother of author Molly Keane. Glenballyeamon and Glenaan meet at Cushendall, ‘the capital of the glens’. Its red curfew tower built in 1817 as ‘a place of confinement for idlers and rioters’ is now owned by a pop group. To the north, Glentaisie and Glenshesk meet at Ballycastle, an appealing town with sweeping beaches and views across to Rathlin Island.



‘tis said…

Glenarm, the southernmost glen, spills out at Glenarm village, overseen by the turrets and towers of a castle whose barbican gateway was built, so ‘tis said, when a chorister from Wells Cathedral married the then Countess of Antrim and persuaded her to give up drink and spend the money on a decent gateway to impress visitors!