Carrickfergus Castle

John de Courcy began the castle around 1177 on a rock projecting into Belfast Lough, and it is among the best-preserved Norman castles in Ireland, with a four-storey keep about twenty-seven metres high and a curtain wall following the shape of the rock. It remained in use continuously for roughly eight hundred years, garrisoned and adapted through successive periods, with gun ports cut for cannon in the sixteenth century and further alterations into the twentieth, before passing into state care as a monument. The keep contains a great hall and a well cut through the rock. Figures in period dress are set through the rooms to show their use. The castle sits directly in the town, with the harbour alongside and the lough traffic passing.

What you actually see

• The keep - a four-storey Norman tower about twenty-seven metres high.
• The rock-following curtain - walls built to the outline of the basalt outcrop.
• The gun ports - sixteenth-century adaptations for artillery in older walls.
• The lough setting - the castle standing out into the water beside the harbour.

When to go

April to October for full opening; winter hours are reduced. The site is exposed to wind off the lough. Weekday mornings are quiet, with school groups common in term time.

Honest expectations

The keep involves steep spiral stairs with no lift. Interiors are sparse, with mannequins doing most of the interpretation. The surrounding town is ordinary and the castle is a short visit.

Nearby

Belfast is fifteen minutes by train; the Antrim coast road begins north of the town.