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CUSHENDUN |
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The once fashionable resort of CUSHENDUN is an architectural oddity,
almost entirely designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, the stylish architect
of Portmeirion in Wales, between 1912 and 1925. However, it has nothing
of Portmeirion's twee Italianate style that was used famously as the
setting for the TV serial The Prisoner . Built to a commission from
Ronald McNeill, the first (and last) Lord Cushendun, and his Cornish
wife, Maud, Cushendun's houses are of rugged, rough-cast whitewash with
slate roofs - a Cornish style which clearly weathers the Atlantic storms
as efficiently here as in Cornwall. The town was home to Agnes Nesta
Shakespeare Higginson (1870-1951), who crafted folksy, sentimental
ballads under the far more apposite adopted name of Moira O'Neill . Very
popular in her day, she's now better known as the mother of Mary Nesta
Skrine (d. 1996), who went one better than Agnes and wrote under two pen-names,
Molly Keane and M.J. Farrell. Good Behaviour , written in her eighties
after a thirty-year silence, is a piercingly witty novel of family life
in the Big House tradition.
All of Cushendun is National Trust property, and it shows. It's a tiny
and well-tended place where tourists - and everyone else - seem
peculiarly out of place. The high spot of the village calendar is
unquestionably its festival week towards the end of July, with plenty of
music, competitions and sporting events. Otherwise it's a place for
summer strolls and watching the fishing boats. The village is blessed
with one of the county's best restaurants , Mary McBride's , whose
homemade chowder and more substantial fish lunches and dinners are well
worth sampling, if a touch pricey at around £15 for two courses (excluding
drinks). B&Bs include the popular Sleepy Hollow , 107 Knocknacarry Rd (tel
028/2176 1513; £33-40), and, out towards Torr Head, Drumkeerin (tel
028/2176 1554; drumkeerin@ireland-holidays.com ; £33-40) and Villa
Farmhouse (tel 028/2176 1252; £33-40). The council caravan park, 14
Glendun Rd (April-Sept; tel 028/2176 1254), has space for camping .
The main road from Cushendun northwest to Ballycastle runs inland,
traversing some impressively rough moorland and passing Loughareema ,
the "vanishing lake", so termed because of its tendency to drain away
completely in hot weather. A mile further on camping is available at
Watertop Open Farm (May-Nov; tel 028/2076 2576), a working farm with
pony trekking and fishing available. However, if you take the main road,
you'll be missing some of the best of the northern coastline. The
coastal road , edged with fuchsia and honeysuckle, switchbacks violently
above the sea to Torr Head , the closest point on the Irish mainland to
the Mull of Kintyre. You can also pick up the signposted Ulster Way
around here, although it swings inland immediately after Cushendun,
joining the coast again at Murlough Bay. If you're keen to linger,
there's farmhouse B&B at Torr Brae , 77 Torr Rd (tel 028/2076 9625;
£33-40).
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