Nine Glens Adventure Tours, 40 Leyland Meadow, Ballycastle (2025)

An award winning tourguide who was born and raised in the Antrim Glens. It is a passion and a pleasure for me to showcase my home and to tell the stories of my people.

29/01/2024

After much deliberation and soul searching over Christmas this year we have decided to pause the 2024 season folks. We have been taking visitors, groups and friends to both Rathlin Island and the Antrim Glens since late 2015, so for nine years now we have tried to showcase some of the best of the North Coast.

We are a seasonal business,operating from March to the end of August and although it has always been passion before profit for us it has got unsustainable for us to operate in the current form.

Rising transportation costs,rising insurance costs, inclement weather (last year),loss of tenders and with a number of tours cancelled alongside personal commitments have led me into having to make a decision before we started to schedule this season.

I want to thank the team, Kirsti, Ksenia and Aoife for all they have did over the last few years and I do hope that at some point we can get back to doing what we all love.

For 2024, I will be focusing on group tours only so still feel free to get in touch.

📸 Team Nine Glen's

18/01/2024

Although the Tenbury Well’s Advertiser was reporting the sinking of the steam trawler The City of Bristol on the 18th of January, the ship actually had gone down on the 11th of January. (www.Irishwrecksonline). It probably took a week for the reporting to reach Tenbury broadsheets.

The City of Bristol was a steam trawler running from Fleetwood in England and on the night in question the ship was seeking shelter from a raging snowstorm between Larrybane and Sheep Island just off Ballintoy. The ship hit the reef there and started to sink nearly immediately. This reef can still be seen from the mainland at time today with a low tide and clear weather. The crew of the City of Bristol did manage to get to the lifeboats and so they started rowing and for the next seven and a half hours they rowed to Ballycastle. They landed exhausted in the town at 1.30am and were taken to the coastguard houses where they were looked after. The entire crew of eleven hands were saved.

The City of Bristol was built in 1903 and was built by the Goole Shipbuilding Co. The Goole Shipbuilding and Repairing Co. was founded by the Craggs family in 1901 and was based on the Dutch River at Goole in Yorkshire, England, this would mean that the City of Bristol was one of their earlier ships. The owner was the Kelsall Brothers Fish Merchants. The Kelsall Brothers were run by John Kelsall, a really wealthy man who left in today’s money nearly seven million in his will in 1919, the company was formed in 1897 and the new company started with 31 steam trawlers and four steam fishers from the Fleetwood Ice Company.Today the City of Bristol lies in about 20m of water between Sheep Island and Ballintoy.

I would imagine there was little sympathy in Ballintoy surrounding the sinking of the The City of Bristol. The Fleetwood Trawler's fishing in the area was a major contention amongst the local population and it was a matter of fact that a law had been passed previously to discourage it.

Thomas Bushley was the Station officer at Ballintoy Coastguard Station and he had meticiously kept notes on what was happening in the area. In 1907, three years before the sinking there was thirty seven boats, 80 men and two boys working the fisheries here. The trawlers however were coming close to shore and ruining the local fishermen's longlines. The locals were saying that there was a lack of fish now and In 1908 a bye law was passed locally that was to stop trawling in an imaginary line from Bengore Head to the Bull point on Rathlin. It didnt stop the trawlers however and one boat that was successfully prosecuted was the Diana which was another one of the Fleetwood trawlers.

The Ballintoy Coastguard would only last until February 1912, where a bigger and more advanced Coastguard Station was being planned for Ballycastle. It was obviously a sad decision for Ballintoy.

08/01/2024

THE NORTH STAR D**E

Along the Carrickmore/ Carraig Mhor road in Ballycastle sits what looks like an entirely man-made structure representing a pier. A stretch of black Olivine Dolerite rock that stretches out towards Rathlin and the Mull of Kintyre.

This rock feature due to volcanic ereuption can be dated to the Carboniferous age. There are many different types of rock in this area but this coastline would probably be most recognised for its coal seams that are in some places visible from the Culfeightrin shoreline.

Over the centuries these coal seams led to deeper pe*******on into the earth surrounding the area in the search for commercial quantities of coal. There was bore holes down to 110ft as far inland as Ballynagard Townland.

Different names were given to the rock bands in this area and some of them might be recognisable to some of us today. Names such as Mc Gildowney’s Marine Band, Carrickmore Black Band Ironstone and Bath Lodge Coal. Named after familiar topographical features and names from this area.

There is also a large faultline that stretches from Ballycastle to Murlough Bay known as the Great Gaw D**e. Throughout the ages it seems that all mining syndicates and potential entrepreneurs were aware of this large D**e.

While the Great Gaw D**e is not visible to the eye, the North Star D**e is one of the most recognisable rock features on the Culfeightrin Coastline, after An Bhinn Mhór/ Fairhead obviously.

O’Cahan (1923) gives us a better understanding of the dimensions of the North Star D**e,

“The North Star D**e has two nearly perpendicular sides and a nearly flat surface and is about 13ft in width, it extends for about 300ft into the ocean. About 21ft of it on the shore is scarcely visible and about 105ft of it has been destroyed by the ocean while the intervening 174ft is well defined. Its highest part is about seven ft, and at the point is about 5ft in height and has an inclination of 7inches from the end towards the East”.

The name of the North Star D**e and the North Star mine is clearly intwinned and is reportedly named because it points directly towards the North Star. Hugh Boyd who commercialised these mines more than most was also referred to in the Dublin Parliament as the Star of the North.

22/12/2023

To all our friends,followers and fellow adventurists. 👣🦀🦞🏄‍♀️🏄‍♀️

A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from myself and the team at Nine Glens Adventure Tours.

We will see you all in 2024 on the beautiful Rathlin Island. ⛴️⛴️

Address

40 Leyland Meadow
Ballycastle
BT546JX

Website

https://nineglensadventuretours.co.uk/

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