Ireland.com

County Antrim

The area is steeped in ancient folklore - if you see four white swans flying off the coast you are witnessing the ghosts of the Children of Lir - Finola and her three brothers who were turned into swans by their jealous stepmother (see County Longford for more details) and doomed to spend three hundred years on the sea of Moyle, the name for the narrow strait between northern Antrim and Scotland.

Antrim's coast is protected by the National Trust of the UK and includes the province's only Unesco World Heritage site - the Giant's Causeway, also the subject of mythology.

Points of Interest

Harland and Wolff and the Titanic Quarter
Prepare for 2012 when the centenary of the Titanic's maiden voyage will be celebrated along with a £1 billion regeneration programme for the derelict docklands. Samson and Goliath, the nicknames for the two giant yellow cranes used to build the ships, dominate the city’s skyline.

The murals of Falls Road and Shankill Road
Open-topbus and black cab tours cater for anyone wishing to educate themselves about the troubles in these famed areas which are still separated from the protestant area of Shankill by a so-called Peace Wall. Sights on the Falls Road (which can also be walked) include the Bobby Sands mural and Milltown Cemetery, site of so many IRA funerals and resting place for many prominent IRA figures including 10 hunger-strikers. The Shankill is just as interesting to visitors with murals, painted kerbstones and paramilitary insignia still evident.

Stormont
Stormont Castle in East Belfast is something of a showpiece with one of the most imposing buildings in Britain and Ireland. The enormous baronial structure is given added drama by The Mile - the long mall that sweeps up to the building. Now the site of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Hillsborough Castle
A late 18th century mansion in an attractive tourist town of the same name just a few miles south of Belfast - where the Hillsborough Agreement - the foundation for the peace agreement in northern Ireland - was signed.

Botanic Gardens
An oasis in the University quarter.

Giant's Causeway
This geological wonder is made up of 40,000 polygonal basalt columns, jutting out into the sea amid a spectacular coastal landscape of cliffs. The story goes that it was built by the Irish Giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill so that he could cross the Irish Sea to Scotland to challenge a rival giant, Benandoner. The basalt columns in the cliffs are spectacular too.