mcleanscotland  are local Scots who pride ourselves on showing you the nooks & crannies other tours companies pass on by.   We can show you those hidden gems even Scots do not know!  Four day tour of Northern Ireland's Antrim coast with Daley Irish Tours and mcleanscotland

A four day self drive tour of Northern Ireland

The Causeway Coastal Route offers the kind of jaw-dropping scenery that fulfils even the fussiest tourist.  Apart from the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Giant's Causeway, the area boasts nine glens, each with their own legends, award-winning golf courses, family parks, castles and the world's first legal whiskey distillery.

THIS FOUR DAY TRIP CAN BE TAKEN ON ITS OWN OR AS A PART OF A LARGER TOUR.

IT CAN ALSO BE TAKEN AS A PART OF A SCOTTISH TRIP.

DAY ONE: FROM BELFAST:  The first stop on our tour is Carrickfergus, a charming town which is home to Northern Ireland's best-preserved Norman castle, built in the 12th century to beat off marauders, carry on up the coast past Larne, the gateway to the Causeway Coast and Glens, to Glenarm, the seat of the ancient, feudal landowners, the Earls of Antrim. We follow the coastal road to Ballycastle for your overnight stop.

DAY TWO: - make a dash for the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. The walk down the gravel path is spectacular.  The rope bridge (below left) spans an 80ft chasm linking a tiny island with the mainland. Surefooted fisherman would traverse it with their salmon - in those days there was just a single handrail.  The scenery on either side of the bridge - smugglers' caves are dotted underneath cliffs sprouting white and purple wild flowers. The land is bordered by the teal-tinged water that I usually associate with islands such as Sardinia. Then the short distance to the Giant's Causeway. The 40,000 mainly hexagonal basalt columns (below right) poke spookily from the sea, the geometric polygons too eerily perfect to be moulded by the volcanic eruption 60 million years ago.  Legend has it that the Fionn mac Cumhail or Finn MacCool (to give him his Anglicised name) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish equivalent Benandonner.  

All that walking makes you thirsty, so head to Bushmills, home to the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery. Established in 1608.  Take the half-hour tour through the factory and bottling plant and learn the differences between Irish and Scotch whisky - the spelling and the fact that the Irish do not use peat smoke in creating their malt. Your final destination is the spectacular Downhill Estate and Mussenden Temple near Castlerock.  The eccentric Frederick Hervey, an Earl and the Bishop of Derry, built the Roman-style Mussenden Temple on the edge of a cliff as his library in the 18th century. Scandalously, the married bishop built it in honour of Frideswide Mussenden, the married sister of his cousin Hervey Bruce. Beneath the temple, the bishop built a room for Catholic priests to say Mass. Overnight in either Coleraine or on the coast near Portstewart.

DAY THREE:  – driving in Co Londonderry, your first stop is a beautiful 18th Century folly, originally inspired by the Tivoli Temple of Vesta. It is a much photographed landmark built close to the extensive gardens, grounds and forest of the ruined Downhill Castle.  Superb views along the northern coastline from here will make your morning!  Then follow the road along the coast of Lough Foyle to Limavady.  Archaeologists tell us that the first settlers arrived in Ireland around 8000 BC. This comparatively late event in pre-history is probably due to the last Ice Age. The standing stones and small stone circles that dot the Limavady area landscape are remnants of the Neolithic period from about 4000 BC. Limavady town itself and many of the surrounding villages have Celtic roots. No one knows for sure just how old the original settlement of Limavady is. The Celts arrived in Ireland about 350 BC and settlements in the Banagher area of the Limavady Borough date from before the 5th century AD. One of the earliest records describe how Saint Columbkille presided over a Convention at Mullagh Hill, just outside the modern town in 575 AD to determine the future of the Irish Colony that had settled in the South West of Scotland.  Just upstream from the castle is where legend tells us that a faithful hound of one of the O'Cahan chiefs jumped a gorge on the River Roe to get help during an unexpected enemy attack. Thus giving rise to the name "Leim an Mhadaidh" which means leap of the dog and is today anglicised as Limavady.

Your tour takes time out at the place of much controversy – Londonderry Town.  The story of Derry is a long and tumultuous one. Set on a hill on the banks of the Foyle estuary, strategically close to the open sea, it came under siege and attack for over a thousand years.  St Columb came out of Donegal to escape the plague 1,400 years ago and founded his first monastery in the oak grove (Doire in Gaelic), a gift from his cousin, Prince of Aileach. It was a holy place. The saint said that 'the angels of God sang in the glades of Derry and every leaf held its angel.'  You can walk along the great 17th-century walls, about a mile round and 18 feet thick, which withstood several sieges and even today are unbroken and complete, with old cannon still pointing their black noses over the ramparts. The great siege lasted for 105 days.  The modern city preserves the 17th-century layout of four main streets radiating from the Diamond to four gateways - Bishop's Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Shipquay Gate and Butcher's Gate. Historic buildings within the walls include the 1633 Gothic cathedral of St Columb.   Overnight here in DERRY

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