Murlough Bay

Tucked beneath Fair Head, Murlough Bay is one of the more remote spots on this coast — a genuinely quiet, wooded bay that feels a world away from the busier stops further west, with views out to Rathlin Island and Scotland on a clear day.

Roger Casement’s memorial

In 1916, Roger Casement — the Irish-born former British diplomat captured at Banna Strand while awaiting a German arms shipment for the Easter Rising — was executed for treason in London. His final wish was to be buried at Murlough Bay, near where his cousins lived and close to where he’d spent part of his childhood. That wish was never granted: his body was repatriated in 1965 and reinterred in the republican plot at Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery instead, after British Prime Minister Harold Wilson personally rejected reburial at Murlough Bay, reportedly over concern it would provoke unionist backlash.

In 1928, the McCarry family erected a stone Celtic cross at Murlough Bay in Casement’s memory, along with an empty grave built as his intended resting place — still there today, despite his body never having occupied it.

Game of Thrones

Murlough Bay was used for filming scenes in the show’s final season. It’s a genuinely striking, cinematic setting even without knowing that — the kind of place that explains itself the moment you see it.

Visiting

There’s little in the way of facilities here — this is a spot for the view and the walk, not a built attraction. Combine it with Fair Head above it, or with Loughareema on the same stretch of the A2 between Ballycastle and Cushendall.