06-08-2025
A road trip on Ireland's rugged northern coast, where the food is as good as the views
House martins and swallows are our constant companions, whether snapping up fluttering mayflies in the car park of Glencar Waterfall during a downpour or swooping from the eaves of The Shandon Hotel that overlooks Marble Hill Strand beach in Donegal, where linen-coloured sand slips into grey-green ocean.
It might only have celebrated its 10th official birthday in 2024 but Ireland's 2,500km (1,550-mile) Wild Atlantic Highway has been used by generations of these nippy little migratory birds, who fly from the Sahara to spend their summers in the UK and Ireland.
The clever things know about Northern Ireland's Causeway Coastal Route too.
Aside from the 60-million-year-old natural geometrical marvel that is Giant's Causeway, this 193km stretch of raggedy, bewitching coastline, which starts in Belfast and ends in Derry, often gets lopped off road trips. But no more.
A row of multicoloured houses in Whitehead, a seaside town along Northern Ireland's Causeway Coastal Route. Photo: PA/dpa
As part of the Shared Island initiative, which 'aims to harness the full potential of the Good Friday Agreement to enhance cooperation, connection and mutual understanding on the island', Tourism Northern Ireland and Fáilte Ireland have teamed up to remind visitors that once you hit the end of the Wild Atlantic Way, the sea has not run its course, the cliffs do not peter out and the Guinness really does not dry up.
