“I remember, as vividly as if it were not ten years ago, taking a night ride from Belfast to Cushendall with my father seventy-five years since. We left home about midnight, and arrived at Garron Point at dawn of a summer’s morning. We tied our horses to bushes, and scrambled up to the extremity of the promontory; and I fancy that I can see at the moment the noble view of the North Channel …” So wrote the ageing Dr. John, son of the celebrated Belfast physician, Dr. James McDonnell. He referred to an event during his early boyhood towards the end of the 18th century, which had clearly left an indelible imprint on the retina of his memory. He went on to explain that “till his professional engagements rendered it impossible, he (Dr. James) paid his mother a visit at this house (in Cushendall) once a fortnight. He left home at midnight, found a fresh horse waiting for him at Glenarm, spent some hours lying on a sofa talking to his mother, and rode back to Belfast within the 24 hours – a ride of about 100 English miles.”1
That such a ride was possible would suggest the road he travelled was a kind and gentle one, kept in the best repair. It adds to the magnitude of the achievement to learn that this was not so. On the contrary, in the later stages of the journey, the road he followed plunged and reared from headland summit down to sea level and up again, not once or twice, but many times. Nor was the road maintained in good repair, for no one authority was responsible for its upkeep and condition.
This road was the old Antrim coast road from Larne to Ballycastle. Though it may not have run as close to the sea as does the present one, nevertheless it linked together these towns with the intervening coastal villages of Glenarm, Carnlough, Waterfoot, Cushendall and Cushendun, as well as their respective glens running inland to the wilds of the moors behind. Between each of these and running out into the sea, lie those splendid headlands which make this coastline what it is – Blackcave Head, Ballygally Head, Park Head and Garron Point, to name but some of them. The great defect of the old coast road was that it could not pass round the foot of these. Instead, it had to climb up-and-over each in turn. To do so the road had to leave the coast and negotiate steep and treacherous inland gradients which rendered it useless as a trunk route, and in winter well nigh impassible. For this reason coastwise traffic was then more easily conducted by sea than by land, and to this day, when you are offered a ride by a glensman, it is as likely to be ‘a sail’ as ‘a lift’, though neither will be by sea. Not till the 1830’s when William Bald and Charles Lanyon engineered the present coast road, was it brought round the foot of these intervening headlands. Until this happened the Glens, surrounded as they are by the upland flow-bogs of the Antrim Plateau, were not only cut off from each other, but also isolated from the outside world. Thus, instead of looking south and to the rest of Ireland, the Glens of Antrim looked north and to Cantire for whatever necessaries they were unable to produce themselves. The natural ethnic links with Scotland were thus further strengthened by the rugged facts of local geography.
Let us now follow this old coast route, remembering that its actual course often coincides with that of the present one except where it was obliged to leave the shore and take to the up-and-over crossings of the headlands. At such places, however its course may still be followed by the run of minor roads using the foundations of the old. Only where the old has been completely abandoned by modern usage, do we gain anything like a true impression of the original.
Leaving Larne by what is now Cairncastle Road, the old coast road at once began an inland up-and-over climb of Craigy Hill (350’) to avoid Blackcave Head. The new coast road negotiates this at near sea level by passing through the Blackcave Tunnel, more familiarly known as the Black Arch. Those who use this inland route, for it is still a by-road, will be accustomed to the sudden plunge it takes down the northern flank of Craigy Hill to cross Craigy Bridge 200 feet below. The old road did not reach the coast, but passed through Cairncastle behind Ballygally Head, keeping roughly half a mile inland and about 100 feet above the shore till Drumnagreagh was reached.
Here it braced itself against the fearsome climb over Park Head. This headland was so called because Lord Antrim’s Little Deer Park – the main one lay within the confines of Glenarm demesne – occupied the wedge-shaped stretch of seaward slope which lay between the cliff foot and the shore. The southern, open, end of this naturally bounded park was closed by a high stone wall, behind which the deer were at liberty to roam. It was when the new coast road, rounding the foot of the headland, breached the “Wee park’s broken wall”2 that security was lost and the place was rendered useless as a deer park.
The old road climbed the headland by the very steep gradient known today as the Path Foot, after the farm which nestles at the bottom. Here, in days gone by, trace horses were kept in readiness to assist the traveller up the steepness of the path, for such indeed it was. In 1823 Bishop Mant, describing his journey into the northern part of the diocese to which he had lately been appointed, wrote thus of his approach to Glenarm. “The hill before it is not so formidable as I expected; we walked first up and then down, for about a mile; but the apparatus of fifty or a hundred peasants to push the carriage up, and then keep it from running down, exists no longer but in tradition. Such assistance was given, it is said, in days of old to visitors of Glenarm; but it is no more. In fact our post-horses appeared fully equal to the work on the occasion.”3
Bishop Mant made his ascent of the Path towards the end of the period when it was the sole means of entering the Glens from the south, other than by sea. Nor had the new road as yet been planned, so that in all probability the path was in as good condition then as it had ever been. Hence, it was no longer necessary to call upon local labour for assistance as had clearly been the case hitherto. In fact, it had been the steepness and impracticability of the path, as much as anything else, which had rendered the Glens in the past so inaccessible from outside. Within a decade William Bald had forced his new coast road round the foot of Park Head to join up with the old road again by the “branch” at Drumnagreagh, and so began the opening up of the Glens.
It may be noted here that the old Path, though its foundations and surfacing were from time to time improved, underwent no major amelioration till 1967. Then, on account of the coast road being closed first by rockfall and then by storm, the Path Foot again came into its own. To cope with the traffic, the path was widened, its twisted corners straightened, its edges drained and its surface re-macadamed, complete with white lines and cats’ eyes.
The descent into Glenarm was sudden and abrupt. Originally the road led direct to the old castle which stood near the foot of the Vennel. Later, when it had been destroyed (1597) and completely removed, the road passed straight across the main village street running parallel with the river, to pass the Court House and reach the bridge by way of Castle Street. The road crossed by a bridge on, or very close to, the site of the present Barbican Bridge. Once across, it immediately forked, with the present Castle standing betwixt the road bearing left up the glen towards Ballymena and that going right along the coast.
Though sea level had at last been gained, the road at once began another up-and-over process in order to pass round Straidkilly Point. The climb, though neither high (200’) nor steep, was rendered treacherous by the heavy nature of the ground, which, after rain, became a veritable quagmire. Here beds of lias clay, underneath the saturated limestone, dip towards the sea, to form a constantly ‘oiled’ and slippery surface down which the overlying rocks descend. This movement has gone on for ages and accounts for near-by Straidkilly being known as the sliding village. Anyone anxious to see the results of this action should inspect the old road to the south side of the point. There he will see the recently macadamed surface sinking on the seaward side of a newly constructed section of replacement road, the surface twisted and contorted as it falls away below. All this has happened during the last five years.
Once round the point the road dropped down to the sea again to ride round Carnlough Bay along the crest of the outermost storm beach. Here, as far as the mouth of the Carnlough River, its course coincided with that of the new Coast Road. Immediately it had crossed the river it began to prepare itself for the next great obstacle, Garron Point. Leaving the sea, and the course of the new road, it verged inland to pass down the High Street, or Back Street, as it is called in Carnlough. This brought it to the foot of an abrupt rise which lifted it onto a sort of shelf, at about 100 feet above sea level. This shelf lies between the mountain and the sea, towards which it gently slopes. It extends northward for some three or four miles, tapering in width from half a mile in the south to a hundred yards or so at Garron Point. This shelf is called the Largy, the “slope of hills,”4 and throughout its length the old road is known as the Largy Road.
About half way along a branch, Baldy’s Branch – for obvious reasons, takes the modern traveller down on to the new road again, but the old road continued straight on to enter Drumnasole by the Broken Bridge. This is indeed a broken bridge which spanned one of those disappearing rivers, common in limestone country, which in times of spate, when their subterranean courses cannot cope, suddenly become surging surface torrents sweeping all before them. Now we reach the first stretch of virgin old road, that is, road which is no longer used as such. The Broken Bridge has cut it off, and thanks to Baldy’s Branch, there has been no need to re-erect it. Because the road here ran through what is now a private estate, it is perhaps not typical of what it used to be, but it is worth noting that behind the protection of the Broken Bridge, the old road presents a very fine impression. Here it is paved with wave-worn boulders which give it a hard and flattened surface. This is now buried under covering of earth and grass and is only seen where surface water may have washed these clear. The road was surprisingly wide, some 24 feet, and was fenced on every side by either dry stone walls or ditch surmounted by quicks of various kinds.
Passing the old School House, that “charming Georgian building”5 erected by Francis Turnly (1820c) for as many as eighty pupils, the road ran straight out to the extremity of the Largy. When the Marchioness of Londonderry built Garron Tower (1848), use of this section of the road was discontinued, and a new one, running closer to the mountain foot, was made. Thus, fragments of the original still languish here, among the fields of Nappin. Let him who hungers after history linger here, and watch in silence the cavalcade of those who passed along these hedge-fringed corridors in days gone by. Or further on he may amble towards the Tower beneath the line of trees which stand as headstones to a road that long since died. Even within the precincts of the Tower, which has since become a school the old road held relentlessly its course, serving as a thoroughfare between the chapel, the dormitories and the main school buildings.
And just beyond, where football posts and tennis courts now utilise the last confined flatness of the Largy shelf, the road hovers, as it were before its steep descent. It was here, below the mountain on one side and the summit of the Point on the other, that Dr. James McDonnell and his son tethered their horses and scrambled up the grassy slope to view the sunrise over the North Channel. Behind them their road dropped most of 200 feet to the shore below by what was probably the steepest gradient throughout its entity – the Fooarin (or cold) Path. It was so called because, at the bottom, it had to cross a stream issuing from a hole at the foot of the cliff, and cold its water was as it flowed its short hundred yards to the sea. Today we call this the shortest river in Ireland. As with the Path Foot, the nature of the road here finds reflection in its name, both were mere paths. Another reverend gentleman, writing in the same year as did Bishop Mant, explained how those making the ascent “are obliged to procure the assistance of a few ponies, which are kept for this purpose at a neighbouring cottage. They are harnessed as leaders and by their example and exertion encourage the unaccustomed cattle to climb the difficult ascent.”6
From here the road ran along the coast beneath that magnificent basaltic bastion which overlooks the southern Red Bay shore. After passing the old church, it crossed the Burn by the old Ardclinis Bridge. This was a high, double arched erection, which today overshadows the new coast road from the seaward side. It was surprisingly wide for the road it had to carry, and was probably built very shortly before the new road which superseded it. Just beyond the bridge, the modern traveller will notice a low lying cottage on his left, set at a slight angle to the road. This marks the line of the old road, where its course diverged to make the minor up-and-over passage of the bluff – it could scarcely be called a headland – at Drimadried, known nowadays as the Dog’s Nose. In doing so it barely climbed 100 feet and the gradient in both directions was kind and gentle. Subsequent fall-away on the seaward side has cut longitudinal cross-sections in places, which reveal a complete lack of foundation or surfacing. On the northern side, the line of the old road is clearly seen converging again with that of the new immediately opposite the old Milltown pier from which the Glenariffe iron ore used to be shipped.
From here the old and new roads conform until they have crossed the Glenariff River at Waterfoot and passed the caves beyond. At times of high spring tides and strong east winds this passage could be hazardous on account of the waves reaching to the foot of the cliffs. Very shortly the old road left the shore to climb the steep declivity of Crookanavick which lifted it up-and-over the headland upon which stand the ruins of Red Bay Castle. Here the road seems to have dug itself into a deeply entrenched pass, well worth a visit by those who wish to gain a vivid impression of the kind of track this old road used to be. Not only is an excellent view of the Castle obtained from the summit, but also of the remains, now all too rare, of that bygone rural adjunct, a pound.
The old road pursued from here an uninterrupted northward course straight through Cushendall, up the hill and along the Middle Road towards Glendun. On reaching the narrow neck of high ground across the flood-plain of the Dun at Knocknacarry, it swung left to cross the river by Knocknacarry Bridge. Leaving the valley at Bunavoher, it struck due north-west across the mountain. This course took it well to the east of Loughaveema and the present road to Ballycastle. It also took it most of 200 feet higher. The gradient was steep and relentless, a “rise of about 900 feet in about two miles or about 1 foot in 11 ½ supposing the slope to be uniform, which it is not.”7 In earlier days other reasons made it necessary to “have a guide to Ballycastle and well you escape – so the mountains seem a continual bog, where a man is in danger (of) sinking with his horse …8 So said Richard Dobbs in his description of County Antrim highways, written in 1683. This line of road, having reach the summit, kept to the right bank of the Carey River, crossing the Flughery and Ess Bridges to run into the present road at Ballyvoy, and so into Ballycastle.
In conclusion, it may be added that in 1817 Francis Turnly built the Red Arch to lead a new road around the foot of the headland separating Waterfoot and Cushendall, thus avoiding the awkwardness of Crookanavick. In 1882 he greatly improved the passage over Garron Point by blasting a way, Turnly’s Cut, through a protruding crag of limestone, thereby obviating the Foarin Path. Together these measures made the journey between his estates at Drumnasole and Cushendall a great deal easier. He had executed, perhaps unwittingly, a pilot scheme which demonstrated the kind of road that could be built. A decade later William Bald constructed the present famous coast road which, since then, has so altered life in the Glens.
References:-
1. A History of the Town of Belfast, by George Benn, 1880 edition only, Vol. II, p. 160.
2. Antrim Idylls and Other Poems, by W. Clarke Robinson, 1917, from the poem “Glenarm”.
3. Memoirs of the Rt Rev. Richard Mant, by the Ven. Walter B. Mant, 1857, p. 163.
4. The Macdonnells of Antrim, by the Rev. George Hill, 1873, p. 427.
5. Glens of Antrim, by C.E. Brett, an Ulster Architectural Heritage Society publication, 1972, p. 22.
6. A Guide to the Giant’s Causeway and the North East Coast of Co. Antrim, by the Rev. G. N. Wright, 1823, p.46.
7. Life in the Glens of Antrim in the 1830’s, a Glens of Antrim Historical Society publication, 1988, p. 31.
8. The Macdonnells of Antrim, by the Rev. George Hill, 1873, p. 396.