Waterfalls of the Glens of Antrim

Our Waterfalls

The witchery of Irish waterfalls is well known.They have not the awe-inspiring grandeur of a Niagara or Zambesi fall, but for enchanting loveliness they are unequalled. Glenariff’s waterfalls are named ‘Ess-na-Larach’, ‘Ess-na-Crub’, and other names which all but one (‘The Tears of the Mountain’) refer to a mare, ‘The Fall of the Mare’, ‘The Fall of the Shoe’, ‘The Mare’s Tail’ and so on.

Carnlough has its Doonan waterfalls and its Crannyburn, two little streams which fall over the rock in musical disorder, then sedately arrange themselves in regular cadence to continue, between fern-and-flower-decked fields, their journey seaward. Carnlough people love these falls and have a ‘Waterfall Road’ named after them.

The Doonan (‘little fort’) fall, attractive in itself, has an added attraction for those with antiquarian tastes, as it is near the Doonan Fort, an ancient burial tumulus which has at its base a number of huge stones forming large chambers. Carnlough-born Miss N.J.N. Johnston, who was an authority on our ancient music and once Ulster’s only Uilleann piper, lived here and Carnlough was also the home of several well-known literary men – Mr George Shiels, playwright, and the Rev. Aston Robinson, MA, the authority on the history of Ulster Presbyterianism.

The late Professor Clarke Robinson, PhD, MA, BSc, though a native of Glenarm, ended his days here. He received his first education at the hands of a schoolmaster named Patrick Magill, afterwards passing on to the Belfast Royal Academical Institution. He showed a special aptitude for languages and literature and went from there to study at Bonn University where one of his fellow pupils was Prince Wilhelm, later Wilhelm II of Germany, the much hated ‘I and God’ Kaiser Bill of the 1914–18 war.

This description of is extracted from Traveller in the Glens by Jack McBride, published in a new paperback edition by Appletree Press.

Traveller in the Glens by Jack McBride has just been reissued in a paperback edition by Appletree Press.