You learn a lot walking the Dorna shoreline and clifftops seen in The Game of Thrones.
Not just how to make Irish porridge ( “Just splash some Bushmills whiskey into it” ) and what differentiates an Ulster Fry breakfast from an All-Irish one. The latter doesn’t have baked beans.
You learn far more than that 42000 hexagonal basalt columns make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site Giant’s Causeway and that Co Antrim was the only place fired on by a German U-Boat. You learn invaluable skills like how to keep out the north Atlantic winds (“By staying indoors”) and how to distinguish between a ghost and an American.
On a tour along Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast, Simon my “Landmark Luxury” guide pointed with his blackthorn at a woman standing on a clifftop. She wore a billowing white dress. Simon quickly explained that she was on an “elopement package”, available to those who prefer to get married in an open field than in a church and to those brides who prefer, for the photos, to stand beside an old ruin rather than a handsome best man or pretty bridesmaids. Knowledgeable Simon confirmed the women wasn’t the ectoplasm of the long-dead Lady of Dunluce waiting for the return of her lover from the high seas. She was just someone waiting for a humanist celebrant.
Having your own private Co Antrim “Seanchai” is a must. Simon is a proud storyteller and keeper of local lore and his jokes are as old as the Giants Causeway itself. He will give you a whisky-tasting on the Honeycomb (out of the wind) , take you to and over the famously wobbly Carrick-a-Red Rope Bridge built by salmon fishermen in 17551, to see the Games of Thrones locations – Dunluce Castle ( Pike castle), Downhill beach ( Dragonstone), Ballintoy (Lordsport harbour) which also boasts the Fullerton Arms pub, one of the province’s ten Game of Thrones doors carved from the Dark Hedges, blown down by Storm Gertrude in 2016,
He does a pretty convincing Finn McCool/ MacCumhaill the Giant too. And will even advise on souvenirs.
“A slab of 60 million-year-old basalt is good protection against cannon fire.”
“Or maybe some Causeway Aromatics. Their Irish Sea and basalt reed diffusers will see your fine.”
And , if he senses you are bored with all the myths and history and need entertaining, he will sing “Caroline” or “Whatever You Want”. He is also the lead singer of a local Status Quo tribute band,
He will tip you the wink about must-do activities around Portrush,
Such as having a coffee in Portrush’s Shanty old boathouse and enjoying an oyster flake from Mr Whippee while strolling White Rocks beach, the East and West strands, the dolerites and mudstone hornels over to Ramone Head. West Bays’ prevailing swell is chilly for some and gnarly for others. You can enroll at Portrush Surf School and get wiped out on a Troggs board. Then have a pint or two of the Black Stuff ( 0.0% or otherwise) at the Harbour Bar.
The town is a bracing hour walk down the beach from Northern Ireland’s newest luxury hotel. The Dunluce Lodge, on the fourth fairway of the 1888 Royal Portrush Golf Club which hosts this year’s ( the 153rd) Open, boaste one of the best restaurants in the area, In the “Bailiu” ( rish Gaelic for gathering). Former Rick Stein apprentice and Executive Chef at the Loch Eran Resort, Stephen Holland offers smoked Lough Neagh eel with seared scallops, Glenarm North Coast salmon, venison from County Tyrone, halibut with crayfish sauce, flax-fed sirloin steak with garlic and ginger sauteed spinach, Co Fermagh mushrooms, Bridal Gold butter, the hotel’s signature Baked Alaska, spiced plum and pistachio tart, stout and treacle soda bread and artisanal Ballylisk cheese of Armagh. A bowl of Comber potatoes is £8.
There are plenty of bothies and Airbnbs as well as B&Bs and hotels like The Royal Court on the headland on Balybgey Road. Its royals status allegedly comes from a certain royal entertaining his mistress there.
Part of the “Ulster Way”, a 1000km circuit of Northern Ireland and bookended between the Moyle Way and the North Sperrine Way, the 53mile Causeway Coast Way is a relatively easy , low-lying walk between the old middle class Victoria family resort of Portstewart (Port na Binne) with its 2km blue flag stand and Ballycastle, home of annual Lammas Gair in Augist, and the gateway to the Glenns (Glynns ) of Antrim ( Aontroim means lone ridge). Views are over to Kintyre, Donegal and Rathlin island where Robert the Bruce watched his spider. Allegedly.
Great golf courses abound. So golf is on everyone’s lips. A wall of a house in Portrush even has a mural of Shane Lowry who won the Open there in 2019.
Over a Calamity Corner dirty martini -named after famous par 3 16th- I asked Pierce the barman at Dunluce Lodge whom he fancied for The Open. “My heart is with Rory or Shane,” he said.
“But I think Brooks Koepka and Jake Knapp have a chance.”
Groundsman and curator of the hotel’s putting green and former chef Glenn picked Tommy Fleetwood.
Gerard, the wilfully neurodivergent doorman, thinks Tony Jacklin.
Ireland always surprises. And endears.
As well as leaving you wind-swept.