6 Best Beaches In County Antrim

This is the county where that actually works, because the beaches sit along one coastal run rather than scattered inland. A family can look at two or three in a morning and settle at whichever one suits the mood and the wind that day. The village beaches are the practical stops; the wilder bay is better treated as a destination in itself rather than one of several.

Ballycastle Beach is the one built for it, being the biggest on the list and attached to a town rather than a hamlet. The glens beaches at Carnlough Beach, Waterfoot Beach and Cushendall Beach are smaller and quieter, which some families much prefer and which suits an hour rather than a full day. Pick by the kind of day you want it to be.

Scale and seclusion. It is a wide sweep of sand backed by open ground rather than by a car park and a row of shops, which is the attraction and also the catch. Getting down to it is more of a walk than at the village beaches, and there is less to fall back on when the weather turns or somebody is hungry. Come prepared and it is the best of the six.

Change category rather than beach. All six are outdoor and none carries an indoor flag, so a wet day on this coast is a wet day everywhere on it. The coastal route itself still gives you something — a drive between the glens with stops to look at the sea from the car is not nothing — but do not expect any of these six to shelter a family for an afternoon.