The Northern Ireland Guide

All that remains of Dunseverick Castle is a small and unimpressive wall on top of a precipice that faces the ocean. You would never guess that a distinguished castle once stood on that spot and that the area was popular enough to attract a number of visits from Saint Patrick himself.

As a matter of fact, the wall that remains is the only part of the castle not destroyed by General Munro during the Irish rebellion of 1641. According to one source, the thick wall was the only part of the castle Munro's troops weren't able to demolish. I guess they weren't thinking of future tourism potential...

The ruins of Dunluce Castle have sat on the edge of the North Antrim cliffs for centuries, providing one of the iconic images of Northern Ireland. In fact, Dunluce Castle is one of the essential stops in any proper tour of the North Coast, alongside the Giant's Causeway and Carrick A Rede rope bridge.

It's widely believed that even before a castle existed on this site that it was some kind of pre-Christian fort.

Belfast Castle is one of the city's hidden gems. Situated off the Antrim Road, it may not be the most central of Belfast attractions, but it's well worth the visit.

Not only can you have a leisurely dander around the castle gardens, but there are plenty of walks in the nearby Cave Hill Country Park, including an adventure playground for the children.

The castle itself is an elegant sandstone construction, built in the Scottish Baronial style by the architects Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon - the principal work was done by the junior partner in that firm, John Lanyon (son of Charles Lanyon). The many turrets and the elaborate stone staircase at the rear of the building make it worth the visit.

Looking down from the car park at the castle, you get a very good view of the gardens below, and the view of Belfast Lough further away in the distance. It's easy to see why such a prominent family would have chosen to live so high up and get majestic views on the emerging city.

Of course, others might claim that it was to look down upon the rest of the populace....

I got an email recently from Paul Quinn, a local from the Ballycastle area who runs regular tours of Rathlin Island for individuals and groups.

We went across to Rathlin a couple of months ago with the family, and I really wish I'd known about Paul back then. He'd probably have advised us to attempt a walking trip without the children!

We took a drive down to Castlewellan Forest Park last Sunday, our first visit to the park despite being told by friends and family that it was an excellent place for a day out.

We weren't disappointed. The forest park is full of things to do. There are excellent forest and lakeside walks, the picturesque castle set in the hillside and probably lots more that we didn't see after the rain came on! Oh, did I forget to mention that it also hosts the world's largest maze? Well it does.

We paid a visit to the Downpatrick & Co. Down Railway on Sunday and managed to have a good look around as well as a ride on the train. Of course, the weather for an afternoon in July left much to be desired, but there was plenty to do to keep us (and the kids) busy until the train came along.

Hello everybody. If you've been to The Northern Ireland Guide before, you'll notice that things have changed a little bit around here.

When we decided to start a guide to Northern Ireland a year or so ago, we didn't count on being too busy to keep things up to date! But that's what happened, and the blog fell very much by the wayside.

Our goal for the Guide was to show the world all the positive things about Northern Ireland that they don't get told via the media. There's so much going on around the province, so much regeneration and optimism that we want to share it with you.

We've decided it's time to get this site up and running properly for 2007. Over the coming weeks, we'll be pushing The Northern Ireland Guide forward in new ways. We'll be keeping our fingers on the pulse and telling you what's going on around NI.

We've upgraded the back-end of the site to a system called Drupal which can support all manner of cool interactions and we'll be rolling out new features as we go along.

In the meantime, if you've got any news or information you want us to share here on the site, please drop me a line (hmm, apparently you have to log on to use this form).

Venue: Lough Shore Park, Antrim Amazingly, this is the fourth year of the Return Of The Vikings event in Antrim town. Lough Shore Park is an idyllic place to spend a hot summer afternoon anyway, but the added excitement of the replica Viking longships should make things especially interesting. Again, this is a great family day out and features rides, exhibitions and stalls displaying (and selling) local crafts.