A short detour off the road between the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede, Ballintoy Harbour is a small, genuinely working inlet tucked among dramatic dark rock formations — one of the most photogenic spots on the whole coast, and small enough to see properly in half an hour.
History
The harbour was built for industry, not tourism. In 1860, Herdman, McKenna & Company began quarrying limestone at Ballintoy and built the harbour along with a pair of limekilns and rail tracks to move stone down to the quay. By 1861, Ballintoy Lime Works was exporting product across to Ayrshire and Glasgow, where it was used in iron smelting. The twin kilns still standing at the harbour today carry a Grade B1 listing, protecting them as a genuine piece of the coast’s industrial heritage — not just a scenic backdrop.
The village itself goes back further still: local history boards note Stone Age dwellers as the earliest known settlers on this stretch of coast, and the Stewart and Fullerton families were long-established locally — the Fullerton Arms, still trading in Ballintoy village today, takes its name from one of them.
Above the harbour, the small whitewashed Ballintoy Parish Church sits on the hill — one of the most photographed church settings on the north Antrim coast in its own right.
Game of Thrones
Ballintoy Harbour played Lordsport, the port of Pyke on the Iron Islands, across Seasons 2 and 6 — including Theon Greyjoy’s homecoming arrival and his baptism to the Drowned God on the pebble beach. It remains one of the most visited Game of Thrones filming locations in Northern Ireland.
Visiting
Parking is limited — a small car park with picnic facilities sits beside the harbour café, with further space along Harbour Road. From the harbour, it’s a short walk to the sweeping curve of White Park Bay in one direction, and a coastal path the other way leads toward Larrybane and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, if you’d rather walk between the two than drive.
Getting there: on the B15 coast road, about 12km (7.5 miles) from the Giant’s Causeway — easy to combine with Carrick-a-Rede or Whitepark Bay on the same trip.