New from prolific travel-guide author Tim Burford is Bradt’s Northern Ireland, the longest and widest-ranging standalone guide to the country. A British-governed part of the island of Ireland that comprises six of the original nine counties of Ulster, there is nowhere in Europe quite like Northern Ireland. From great city breaks to scenic coastal drives, it offers visitors immense variety in a compact package. Belfast has developed an enticing reputation as an urban destination, with fine pubs, restaurants, music and museums – and Derry/Londonderry isn't far behind. The Atlantic Ocean coast of Antrim is renowned for its land- and seascapes, culminating at the amazing Giants Causeway, where forty thousand interlocking basalt columns thrust upwards from the sea. Games of Thrones aficionados can visit both locations and the studio complex in Bambridge. The edible produce of land and sea is justly famous, not to mention the whiskey: why not try a double Bushmills in the tiny Mary McBride's Bar in Cushendun, which measures just 9 feet by 5. As many as one in eleven Americans has Ulster ancestry or family connections, including 18 Presidents (such as Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Nixon, Carter, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama). This makes a visit to the Ulster American Folk Park near Omagh, which describes the origins of a key early immigrant groups to the United States, unmissable. There are prehistoric relics, grand country houses (such as Mountstewart and Castle Ward), a range of churches (including St Gobban’s, which is barely bigger than Mary McBride’s Bar) plus Downpatrick cathedral (where St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, is buried), famous golf courses (Royal Portrush and Royal County Down) and striking monuments of the industrial age, most famously the shipyard where RMS Titanic was built. Even the legacy of the Troubles is being reassessed, including through black-taxi tours of Belfast’s Republican and Loyalist murals. Perhaps best of all, this fabulous diversity is packed into a country where you can travel from one side to the other within a couple of hours.
