Exploring The Amazing Antrim Coast and Striking It Rich
Searching for Game of Thrones filming locations in Northern Ireland
The Giant’s Causeway
Our two-car caravan set off one morning from Belfast up the M2 and then the A26 to Ballymoney and then on to the Giant’s Causeway at the top of the Northern Antrim coast. Our first stop was The Giant’s Causeway, the only UNESCO heritage site in Northern Ireland and the top tourist attraction in the country.
The UK’s National Trust manages the Causeway. Anybody can visit the Causeway for free. You have to pay for parking, though, and there’s an admission fee for the Visitor Centre. There’s also a shuttle from the Visitor Centre to the Causeway and back. We walked down but took the shuttle back.
The Causeway consists of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that are mostly hexagonal but may have as few as four sides or as many as eight. The strange shapes are the result of instant cooling after volcanic activities that occurred (according to the audio devices we were given for our self-guided tour) some 66 million years ago.
We walked by the Organ Pipes while hiking the Blue Trail. Another basalt formation called the Giant’s Gate is right by the Grand Causeway.
Ballintoy Harbour
Ballintoy Harbour is 7.4 miles (12 kilometers) down the coast from the Giant’s Causeway. GoT connection: In seasons 2 and 6 of Game of Thrones the harbor served as Lordsport, the capital of the isle of Pyke in the Iron Islands.
GoT connection: Theon was baptized in the waters off Ballintoy Beach in Episode 3 of Game of Thrones Season 2.
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
The Carrick-a-Rede car park and ticket office is about two minutes from the Ballintoy Harbour car park.
Lenbane Quarry is on the left. Sheep Island is on the right. Kenbane Castle sits on a rock in the middle of the photo. We were told that on a clear day you can see the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland from this portion of the trail.
GoT connection: The quarry halfway up the cliff on the left was the site for Renly’s Camp in Season 2 of Game of Thrones and for Kingsmoot in Season 6. The quarry now serves as an overflow car park for the Carrick-a-Rede parking lot.
My granddaughter Clare is in the lower left, just completing her walk across the bridge. Her dad is just starting to walk across.
The first rope bridge to the tiny island of Carrick was built by salmon fishermen in 1755. This is the eighth bridge, built in 2008. The National Trust owns and maintains the bridge and they run a tea-room and gift shop near the car park. Anyone can walk the trail for free, but you have to buy a ticket to cross the bridge (£9 for adults, £4.5 for kids).
There has been no fishing in this area since 2002. The salmon left because of river pollution. So, what’s on the island? Just one building: a replica of a fisherman’s cottage.
The Dark Hedges
The Dark Hedges, so-called because their interlocking branches block out the sun, are believed to be the most photographed trees in Northern Ireland. It’s about 9 miles to the Dark Hedges from the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge car park.
GoT connection: In Episode 1, Season 2 of Game of Thrones Arya Stark flees King’s Landing and rides through the Dark Hedges transformed into Kingsroad on her way to join the Night’s Watch.
The average life of a beech tree is about 250 years.150 beech trees were planted to line the roadway to Gracehill, the Stuart family mansion, in 1775, 247 years ago. Recent winter storms have taken one or two down just about every year. There were 90 trees left when we visited in June 2019. This one fell in January and was still lying there five months later.
The spaces that are left from the downed trees allow one to see a perfect dome of branches and foliage.
After the Dark Hedges we drove back to Belfast. We spent portions of two more days during our week’s stay in Northern Ireland on Game of Thrones-related themes. Stay tuned for these stories.
HBO and Northern Ireland
HBO pumped £251milion into Northern Ireland’s economy during the ten years (2011–2020) it operated its Game of Thrones project in Belfast.
Alas, the new House of Dragons series (a Game of Thrones prequel) will not be filmed in Northern Ireland. HBO terminated their relationship with Titanic Studios in Belfast in 2020. And Titanic Studios went up for sale in 2021.
The first episode of House of Dragons which aired the other night (August 21, 2022) was filmed in Cornwall, Spain, Portugal and California. (Sigh).
Oh well, the Antrim coast will still be there for a long time. Don’t know about those beech trees, though.
