Fair Head
| Fair Head (Benmore) |
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|---|---|
| an Bhinn Mhór | |
Fair Head seen from Ballycastle
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 196 m (643 ft) |
| Coordinates | 55°13′16″N 6°09′14″W / 55.221°N 6.154°WCoordinates: 55°13′16″N 6°09′14″W / 55.221°N 6.154°W |
| Geography | |
 Location in Northern Ireland
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| Location | County Antrim, Northern Ireland |
| OSI/OSNI grid | D180438 |
| Topo map | OSNI Discoverer 5 |
| Geology | |
| Mountain type | Dolerite sill |
Fair Head or Benmore (from Irish: an Bhinn Mhór) is a rocky headland at the north-eastern corner of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It lies 3 miles (5 km) east of Ballycastle town, and is the closest part of the mainland to Rathlin Island. Geography books have long measured the length of Ireland "from Fair Head to Mizen Head". It is a very highly regarded rock-climbing location, and is believed to be the biggest expanse of climbable rock in the British Isles.
The headland of Fair Head rises 196m above the sea. Wild goats can be seen roaming among the rocks beneath the clifftops, where a walkway called The Grey Man's Path winds around the rugged coastline. From the road, a manmade Iron Age island or crannóg can be seen in the middle of a lake, Lough na Cranagh. The lakes are stocked with trout and can be fished during the summer months. All of the land at Fair Head is private farm land, and not owned by National Trust. Access is by the good will of local farm owners.
Many famous Irish artists have painted Fair Head including Maurice Canning Wilks who painted a watercolour from a nearby beach.
Fair Head is widely regarded as Ireland's finest climbing crag, but for a variety of reasons including its relatively remote location and the physical strength and unfamiliar climbing techniques often required there, does not attract the volume of climbers that one might expect at a crag of such quality. Its cliffs stretch for a distance of over 5 km around the headland, rising to a maximum height of over 100m. They are not sea-cliffs, but have been described as a mountain crag by the sea, since they tower above an extensive boulder field and their isolation and size gives climbing there a big-wall mountaineering feel.
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Wikipedia