Dunaneeny Castle

Dunaneeny Castle — Dún an Aonaigh, “fort of the assembly” — sits in ruins on the cliffs above Ballycastle Bay, a short walk past the caravan park at the edge of town. It’s easy to overlook, but this was the MacDonnell clan’s power base on this coast before Bonamargy Friary became their burial place, and the site behind much of Ballycastle’s early history.

Sorley Boy’s castle

Alexander MacDonnell — father of Sorley Boy — held Dunaneeny in the early 16th century, its commanding position over the bay letting him watch his galleys arrive from Kintyre and the Isles. Sorley Boy MacDonnell was reputedly born here around 1505, and died here in 1590. From these cliffs, according to contemporary English accounts, he watched helplessly as English forces carried out the 1575 massacre on Rathlin Island, where hundreds of MacDonnell women, children, and elderly had been sent for safety. Around 1600, his son Randall MacDonnell — later the first Earl of Antrim — rebuilt part of the castle using fashionable English timber-frame construction.

Port Brittas and the first Lammas games

The bay below the castle was once known as Port Brittas, possibly meaning “the British port” — tradition holds that the Dalriada Scots sailed from here around 506 AD to found their colony on the Scottish coast, and centuries later it was where the MacDonnells’ own galleys sheltered.

Dunaneeny has a more direct claim on Ballycastle’s best-known tradition, too: in 1571, Sorley Boy held public games here to mark the coming of age of his nephew Gillaspick — during which Gillaspick was gored and killed taking part in bull-fighting. Those games are widely credited as the true origin of the Ould Lammas Fair, decades before the 1606 charter that later formalised it.

Visiting

The ruins — a gatehouse, wall fragments up to about 2 metres high, and traces of two internal buildings — are a scheduled monument on a triangular headland behind the caravan park. There’s no visitor infrastructure; it’s a quiet, informal site rather than a managed attraction.