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| Colliery Cottage ruins | Towards Fair Head | Murlough Bay |
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As you turn to follow the lane down into Murlough Bay you will came across a concrete plinth on the right hand side, this was originally a station on an ancient pilgrim's way from the old Church of Drumnakill, the plinth is what remains of a more recent cross erected to commemorate Roger Casement who was tried for treason by the Crown. While waiting execution in Pentonville prison he wrote to a cousin 'Take my body back with you and let it lie in the old churchyard in Murlough Bay'. Roger Casement was a frequent visitor to Ballycastle, he stayed with relatives there and found a close affinity to the beauty and wildness of the location. Murlough Bay is a wonderful place for solitude and nature, Buzzards and Peregrine Falcons hunt along the cliff tops while Eider and Fulmar skirt the waves past the ruins of the old Church of Drumnakill, nearby is the burial site of a saint. The ruins closer to Fair Head are those of colliery cottages which date back to a time when coal was mined and shipped from Murlough Bay, the last coal left here in the 1850s'. Lime was also extracted, the old lime kiln stands on the road side just as you start to descend into Murlough. |
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