Mourne
Looking out over the Irish Sea from the coastal path at Bloody Bridge, the slopes of Slieve Donard rearing up behind me, it already seems pretty clear why the Mourne Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is being considered for national park status. For although there are dark clouds overhead and it has been raining since dawn, not even the gloomy January weather can detract from the sheer splendour of the Mourne landscape.Founded in 1966, Mourne AONB encompasses 570 square kilometres of farmland, grassland, forest, moors and coastal vegetation. Its heathland is considered to be among the UK’s finest, while the saltmarsh at Carlingford Lough is the largest in Northern Ireland. But undoubtedly the biggest draw for visitors is the mountain chain that straddles the region.
Covered in pines and gorse, the Mourne Mountains roll out across the landscape like a mottled green serpent, and the chains’ highest peaks are regularly shrouded in mist. Formed 56 million years ago, the closely grouped peaks create a compact ring of 12 summits, stretching 24 kilometres from Newcastle to Rostrevor and sweeping down to the sea at either end. At 852 metres, Slieve Donard (slieve is the Irish word for mountain) is Northern Ireland’s highest peak, but all of the mountains offer spectacular views when the clouds finally lift. People originally settled in the area around 6,000 years ago, and they’ve been making their mark ever since. The landscape that’s visible today is primarily the result of centuries-old agricultural practices. Early farmers in the region had the unenviable task of removing the hundreds of glacial erratics and granite boulders that peppered the uncultivated ground, but the stones didn’t go to waste, being built into the walls that still mark out farm boundaries.
“The walls in Mourne are one of its most notable features,” says National Trust property manager Dave Thomson. “The stones are huge, and the walls were made with sheer muscle and ingenuity. It says something about Mourne men really – you get the impression that the walls were actually built by giants.” Once cleared, the soil itself presented further problems for farmers; Mourne is primarily made up of acidic, free-draining land. The solution was found along the seashore, in the form of seaweed farming on ‘wrack beds’. Farmers would bring large boulders down to the beach and place them in rows along the tide line. Once seaweed began to grow on them, the farmers harvested it on the incoming tide, so that whatever was cut away from the rocks was swept inland. The seaweed was then taken to the fields, dried out and mixed with lime to create a fertiliser that helped reduce the soil’s acidity. Although the wrack beds lie fallow these days, Mourne’s coastline serves another, equally important economic purpose, pulling in more than 100,000 tourists every year. Stretching 72 kilometres from Dundrum Inner Bay at Ardilea, along to Narrow Water at Warrenpoint, it encompasses the entire northern shore of Carlingford Lough (a Site of Special Scientific Interest) and Murlough National Nature Reserve, home to a 4,000-year-old dune system. Formed by retreating ice sheets at the end of the last ice age, the dunes here were considerably reshaped in the mid-medieval period, when the greater part of Europe’s weather system changed to become more energetic. Much of the sediment in the bay was reworked, helping to create some of Northern Ireland’s biggest classically crescent-shaped dunes.
The climate in Mourne is a strange mixture of extremes. The mountains produce some of the country’s wettest and windiest weather, while the coast, a mere few miles away, has some of the warmest and sunniest. Considering that almost all of the extreme rainfall figures for Northern Ireland have been recorded in the Mourne Mountains, it’s hardly surprising that the region is of vital importance to the country’s water supply. My guide for the day, Alan Kilgore, a member of the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside and former warden of Mourne’s educational field centre, explains some of the history. “When the Belfast water commissioners wanted a public water supply for Belfast, part of the area was the major catchment for all of the local rivers, so they bought the land within it,” he tells me. “Then, in the late 1800s, they set up the workforce to build a boundary wall.”
The Mourne Wall, as it’s now known, was an inter-war project, providing jobs for the swathe of unemployed soldiers returning from the First World War. Thirty five kilometres long, it took 18 years to build, encloses 3,642 hectares of drainage land and was seen as a way of both controlling grazing and maintaining water quality. It’s also a major tourist draw, as Kilgore explains. “From the late 1950s, we’ve had the annual Mourne Wall Walk. The hostellers started it, following the wall along the mountain peaks because it was a single day’s walk. Then it became an organised event, fundraising for local hostels. It eventually grew from 50 or 60 people to 3,000–4,000, and thousands of supporters.” unfortunately, the wall’s appeal dwindled during the Troubles and tourism to the region generally dropped off. “People became very reluctant to move outside of the security of known areas,” says Kilgore. “And Belfast’s main water supply is from here – there’s an aqueduct that tunnels through the mountains and heads north to the city, so in 1969, the Loyalists decided that one way to disrupt the government was to blow up the pipe. The people of Belfast had no water for days, and this area became a security concern.” Since the ceasefire in 1994, tourists from the Republic of Ireland have begun flooding back and the tourism industry is once again one of Mourne’s biggest sources of income. Should the proposed national park come to fruition (the Mourne National Park Working Party is due to report on the outcome of its consultations this spring and enabling legislation is currently scheduled for 2009), the tourist trade will continue to grow and grow. As long as it’s correctly managed, this can only be a good thing. “It really lives up to its title,” Thomson concludes. “Mourne really is an area of outstanding beauty. I’d even stick my neck out and say it’s the jewel in Northern Ireland’s upland crown, because it’s such an astonishingly unspoilt area. Hopefully it will remain that way.”
Don’t miss... Alan Kilgore gives an insider’s opinion of Mourne’s greatest attractions
• If you’re looking for a challenge, you can walk the Mourne Wall. Thirty five kilometres of continuous walking will take you along every peak in the Mourne mountain chain
• The Silent Valley reservoir complex is an interesting place to visit. The Mourne Heritage Trust recently opened a nature trail and interpretation centre there
• At Murlough Nature Reserve there’s evidence of the area’s first settlement – at low tide you can see blackened crescents of 6,000-year-old campfires
• The 400-year-old oak wood at Rostrevor offers spectacular views over Rostrevor Quay. CS Lewis spent a great deal of time visiting the Mourne area as a child. He was particularly fond of the Rostrevor area and it has been suggested that he took inspiration for Narnia from it
• The fishing fleet at Kilkeel Harbour is a sight to behold. Seals haul out along the farthest piers and as the boats head out in the evening, lit up and brightly coloured, it offers a
glimpse of the fishing industry that used to dominate the region
March 2007
Covered in pines and gorse, the Mourne Mountains roll out across the landscape like a mottled green serpent, and the chains’ highest peaks are regularly shrouded in mist. Formed 56 million years ago, the closely grouped peaks create a compact ring of 12 summits, stretching 24 kilometres from Newcastle to Rostrevor and sweeping down to the sea at either end. At 852 metres, Slieve Donard (slieve is the Irish word for mountain) is Northern Ireland’s highest peak, but all of the mountains offer spectacular views when the clouds finally lift. People originally settled in the area around 6,000 years ago, and they’ve been making their mark ever since. The landscape that’s visible today is primarily the result of centuries-old agricultural practices. Early farmers in the region had the unenviable task of removing the hundreds of glacial erratics and granite boulders that peppered the uncultivated ground, but the stones didn’t go to waste, being built into the walls that still mark out farm boundaries.
“The walls in Mourne are one of its most notable features,” says National Trust property manager Dave Thomson. “The stones are huge, and the walls were made with sheer muscle and ingenuity. It says something about Mourne men really – you get the impression that the walls were actually built by giants.” Once cleared, the soil itself presented further problems for farmers; Mourne is primarily made up of acidic, free-draining land. The solution was found along the seashore, in the form of seaweed farming on ‘wrack beds’. Farmers would bring large boulders down to the beach and place them in rows along the tide line. Once seaweed began to grow on them, the farmers harvested it on the incoming tide, so that whatever was cut away from the rocks was swept inland. The seaweed was then taken to the fields, dried out and mixed with lime to create a fertiliser that helped reduce the soil’s acidity. Although the wrack beds lie fallow these days, Mourne’s coastline serves another, equally important economic purpose, pulling in more than 100,000 tourists every year. Stretching 72 kilometres from Dundrum Inner Bay at Ardilea, along to Narrow Water at Warrenpoint, it encompasses the entire northern shore of Carlingford Lough (a Site of Special Scientific Interest) and Murlough National Nature Reserve, home to a 4,000-year-old dune system. Formed by retreating ice sheets at the end of the last ice age, the dunes here were considerably reshaped in the mid-medieval period, when the greater part of Europe’s weather system changed to become more energetic. Much of the sediment in the bay was reworked, helping to create some of Northern Ireland’s biggest classically crescent-shaped dunes.
The climate in Mourne is a strange mixture of extremes. The mountains produce some of the country’s wettest and windiest weather, while the coast, a mere few miles away, has some of the warmest and sunniest. Considering that almost all of the extreme rainfall figures for Northern Ireland have been recorded in the Mourne Mountains, it’s hardly surprising that the region is of vital importance to the country’s water supply. My guide for the day, Alan Kilgore, a member of the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside and former warden of Mourne’s educational field centre, explains some of the history. “When the Belfast water commissioners wanted a public water supply for Belfast, part of the area was the major catchment for all of the local rivers, so they bought the land within it,” he tells me. “Then, in the late 1800s, they set up the workforce to build a boundary wall.”
The Mourne Wall, as it’s now known, was an inter-war project, providing jobs for the swathe of unemployed soldiers returning from the First World War. Thirty five kilometres long, it took 18 years to build, encloses 3,642 hectares of drainage land and was seen as a way of both controlling grazing and maintaining water quality. It’s also a major tourist draw, as Kilgore explains. “From the late 1950s, we’ve had the annual Mourne Wall Walk. The hostellers started it, following the wall along the mountain peaks because it was a single day’s walk. Then it became an organised event, fundraising for local hostels. It eventually grew from 50 or 60 people to 3,000–4,000, and thousands of supporters.” unfortunately, the wall’s appeal dwindled during the Troubles and tourism to the region generally dropped off. “People became very reluctant to move outside of the security of known areas,” says Kilgore. “And Belfast’s main water supply is from here – there’s an aqueduct that tunnels through the mountains and heads north to the city, so in 1969, the Loyalists decided that one way to disrupt the government was to blow up the pipe. The people of Belfast had no water for days, and this area became a security concern.” Since the ceasefire in 1994, tourists from the Republic of Ireland have begun flooding back and the tourism industry is once again one of Mourne’s biggest sources of income. Should the proposed national park come to fruition (the Mourne National Park Working Party is due to report on the outcome of its consultations this spring and enabling legislation is currently scheduled for 2009), the tourist trade will continue to grow and grow. As long as it’s correctly managed, this can only be a good thing. “It really lives up to its title,” Thomson concludes. “Mourne really is an area of outstanding beauty. I’d even stick my neck out and say it’s the jewel in Northern Ireland’s upland crown, because it’s such an astonishingly unspoilt area. Hopefully it will remain that way.”
Don’t miss... Alan Kilgore gives an insider’s opinion of Mourne’s greatest attractions
• If you’re looking for a challenge, you can walk the Mourne Wall. Thirty five kilometres of continuous walking will take you along every peak in the Mourne mountain chain
• The Silent Valley reservoir complex is an interesting place to visit. The Mourne Heritage Trust recently opened a nature trail and interpretation centre there
• At Murlough Nature Reserve there’s evidence of the area’s first settlement – at low tide you can see blackened crescents of 6,000-year-old campfires
• The 400-year-old oak wood at Rostrevor offers spectacular views over Rostrevor Quay. CS Lewis spent a great deal of time visiting the Mourne area as a child. He was particularly fond of the Rostrevor area and it has been suggested that he took inspiration for Narnia from it
• The fishing fleet at Kilkeel Harbour is a sight to behold. Seals haul out along the farthest piers and as the boats head out in the evening, lit up and brightly coloured, it offers a
glimpse of the fishing industry that used to dominate the region
March 2007
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