Gold Stone Portrush

A starting point for me. I grew up on the wee peninsula behind the stone here.

Portrush is a very cool place for a young adventurous nerd to explore. I used to roam from early morning until well after home time and never ran out of things to discover.

This was one of my earliest brushes with my ancient ancestors. Finding this on one of my cycles into the countryside led me to the ocean of lore that is Irish Mythology. More importantly, how you could still find ‘evidence’ of this mythology all over the place, if you knew where and how to look.

Known to antiquarians as Cloughorr or Cloch Óir, I was told by locals is was ‘The Gold Stone’. It has a long and very noble history. Hard history tells us it is perhaps between three and four thousand years old. We also know that an unusual settlement was nearby around the same era, at least until c1150 BC, connected to an unusually well made road.

I and a few others reckon this road was one of the five roads that radiated throughout Ireland from the ancient capital of Tara and this would correlate with the name as the ‘Royal Roads’ were reputedly marked with ‘Stones of Gold’. Used by all the famous hero’s like Cú Chulainn and Fionn.

Heady stuff for an inquisitive teenager, thirty years on I’m still fascinated by the landscape and the stories it has to tell us.