NORTHERN IRELAND | Bradt travel guide

TRAVEL GUIDE 

New from prolific travel-guide author Tim Burford is Bradt’s Northern Ireland, the longest and widest-ranging standalone guide to the country. A UK-governed part of the island of Ireland that comprises six of the original nine counties of Ulster, there is nowhere in Europe quite like Northern Ireland. From great city breaks to scenic coastal drives, it offers visitors immense variety in a compact package.

The warmth of the people and the welcome extended to visitors make any visit here memorable. Belfast has developed an enticing reputation as a city-break destination, with fine pubs, restaurants, music and museums – and Derry/Londonderry isn't far behind. The Atlantic Ocean coast of Antrim is renowned for its land- and seascapes, culminating in the amazing Giants Causeway, where forty thousand interlocking basalt columns thrust upwards from the sea. Strangford Lough is delightful, whilst the country’s centre and southwest offers a very green farming landscape of the ilk that no longer exists in most of the United Kingdom.

Fans of outdoor pursuits are spoilt for choice, with hikers heading for the Mourne Mountains and cyclists following the Kingfisher Trail. Games of Thrones aficionados can visit both locations and the studio complex in Bambridge. The edible produce of land and sea is justly famous, not to mention the whiskey: why not try a double Bushmills in the tiny Mary McBride's Bar in Cushendun, which measures just nine feet by five?

There are prehistoric relics, grand country houses (such as Mountstewart and Castle Ward), a range of churches (including St Gobban’s, which is barely bigger than Mary McBride’s Bar) plus Downpatrick cathedral (where St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, is buried), famous golf courses (Royal Portrush and Royal County Down) and striking monuments of the industrial age, most famously the shipyard where RMS Titanic was built. Even the legacy of the Troubles is being reassessed, including through black-taxi tours of Belfast’s Republican and Loyalist murals. Perhaps best of all, this fabulous diversity is packed into a country where you can travel from one side to the other within a couple of hours.