Do you like to be beside the seaside? Malcolm Rogers does and travelled
to the very top of Ireland for an old-fashioned seaside holiday in Co. Antrim’s
Portrush.
At the most northerly point of the famous Antrim Coast Road lies Portrush.
It looks out to the North Atlantic and there’s not even a tree between the
town and the North Pole.
Despite this, and notwithstanding the gales which can blow in from Iceland,
it’s possible to have seaside holidays here the like you’ve never seen since
the 1950s.
Indeed you might imagine that not much has changed since the novelist
Charles Lever, who lived in the Main Street, entertained Thackeray here.
The English writer was much impressed by the town and its surroundings,
although he did detect some traces of ‘sanctimoniousness and sabbatarianism’.
These have largely disappeared, but there is still an old fashioned ambience
to be found in the town. Maybe it’s that bracing sea air.
True, all the trappings of any other seaside resort in Ireland or Britain
can be found — caravans, chip shops, slot machines and discos — but somehow
that unmistakable air of ’50s gentility pervades the place.
One of the town’s most famous attractions, the Royal Portrush Golf Course,
helps give the place a tinge of the cosmopolitan. The course pulls in golfers
from as far afield as Japan and America — Michael Douglas and his party
(which included Dan Quayle) played a round here recently. And this is the
only course in Ireland, if my memory serves me correctly where the British
Open has been held.
Whether the course is something you want to sample will depend largely
on your standard of golfing — and how deep your pockets are. A round will
cost you £80 during the week, £90 at the weekend. And they’ll want to see
your handicap certificate before they allow you to get your niblocks out.
Portrush is also an ideal place to launch a major expeditionary force
to Bushmills Distillery — which you can attend whether a professional or
not, and without a handicap certificate.
The neat little village of Bushmills is some half a dozen miles away,
with the world’s oldest distillery conveniently situated just about 10 feet
outside the town. And here’s a funny thing, fact fans — the first electric
tramway in these islands (Portrush-Bushmills) was opened here in 1883, and
only closed in 1947. Whether this was to facilitate Portrushians on a pub
crawl to the distillery I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Regrettably the local
museum has nothing to say on the subject.
The town is also an ideal centre to explore the grandeur of the Antrim
Coast. The Giant’s Causeway scarcely needs any introduction and is always
worth a visit, but there is also White Park Bay.
This National Trust-run property has everything: white chalk cliffs,
grassy dunes, and foaming waves on clear water — all on a mile-long crescent
of golden sand.
To the west, the tiny hamlet of Portbraddan — boasting the smallest church
in Ireland (one of 14 smallest churches in Ireland) — nestles between the
bay and the Giant’s Causeway. Look out to sea, and on a fine day you’ll
see Rathlin Island and, weather permitting, the Mull of Kintyre — Scotland
is only a few miles away. All together now: “Mull of Kintyre, Old mist rolling
in from the sea...”
Actually, you should be singing another song entirely. Any visit to the
area could hardly be complete without making mention of the great Jimmy
Kennedy, a prolific songwriter from nearby Omagh who made Portrush his home.
Jimmy was responsible for such gems as The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, The Hokey
Cokey, South of the Border, Isle of Capri, and perhaps his biggest number
Red Sails In The Sunset.
In America people assume Red Sails is set on a sunswept beach in Hawaii;
in Britain it is assumed to be about the Mediterranean. But the song was
inspired by a scene set here on the North Coast of Ireland. Jimmy had moved
from Omagh to the Antrim town, and one evening watched as a Portstewart
boat, The Kitty Of Coleraine, set sail. It’s sails were white — it was only
the sunset which made them appear red — and were etched out in silhouette
against the Inishowen Hills of Donegal. The scene inspired Jimmy, and he
later spoke of his satisfaction with the symmetry of the occasion — he had
written a song about a boat named after a song: “Only in Ireland could you
do that.”
Incidentally, The Kitty of Coleraine is moored in Portstewart harbour,
and the sun still sets red over the Inishowen Hills. You have to go there
— it might waken your lyrical muse, and who knows what you might create?
But don’t blame me if you imbibe too much Bushmills and all you end up with
is something like the Hokey Cokey.
