Detour #51: Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland, UK
On a drive through the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland, you can test your skill on the Spelga Hill Climb and try to figure out why your car is rolling backwards uphill on the Magic Road.
The Mountains of Mourne, a song by Irish musician Percy French, tells the tale of a young man leaving Ireland in the late nineteenth century to seek his fortune in London, where he believes, ‘There’s gangs of them diggin’ for gold in the street.’
Spoiler alert: upon his arrival in the capital, our hero finds that the streets are not actually paved with gold after all. Remorsefully he concludes, 'But for all that I've found there, I might as well be, where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.’
But what you will find in the Kingdom of Mourne are treasures London can never offer – superb driving roads, spellbinding scenery and, if you get your timing right, peace and solitude.
Start in Hilltown, about an hour’s drive south of Belfast International Airport, and turn off to the right from the B8 onto the B27. If you are driving in early spring, you'll need to keep your wits about you, as sheep and young lambs have a habit of wandering onto the road.
The first proper challenge you’ll face is Spelga Pass, a series of uphill bands where the local Rathfriland Motor Club used to host a closed-road hill climb. It's one of my favourite bits of road, and one of my fondest memories is of testing a then-outgoing Audi quattro 20-valve against the newly arrived S2 Coupé quattro in 1991 for Auto Express with the late Bob Cooke. It took a while to figure out which Audi was the quickest. Was it the old warhorse, the quattro, or the young upstart, the S2? And then I worked it out. It was whichever one Bob was driving.
You may well want to take a secondary Detour and try the Magic Road. Look for a small road on the right off the pass heading down to Spelga Dam. You'll drive downhill – or at least you'll appear to drive downhill – to the gates of the dam. Pull up by the gates, select neutral, leave the handbrake off and you'll feel your car roll back up the hill. It's an optical illusion of course, but it is an utterly convincing one.
Back on the route, the road opens up, taking you straight through the heart of the Mournes. It’s spectacular at any time of year, but I love it late on a winter’s afternoon, chasing the last of the light between the brooding, snow-capped peaks.
When you come to Attical turn left and head for the small fishing village of Annalong. From here it's another left as you take the coastal route to the seaside town of Newcastle for a stop. There are plenty of cafés where you can get a bite to eat and perhaps try the local delicacy, an Ulster Fry with potato bread and soda bread. It’s much like an English Fry, but tastier, and with more cholesterol.
You can also see what Percy French meant what he wrote about the Mountains of Mourne sweeping down to the sea. Slieve Donard, at 2,790 feet the highest of the peaks, towers majestically over the town and tumbles down to the breakers of the Irish Sea.
And who knows, you might even find some of that most precious of metals. Back in 2009 scientists discovered that gold used in prehistoric artefacts originated from the Mourne Mountains.
Words Angus Frazer
Photography Eric Jones / Shutterstock
ROADBOOK
CLASS: MOUNTAIN PASS AND COASTAL ROUTE
NAME: KINGDOM OF MOURNE
ROUTE: HILLTOWN TO NEWCASTLE
COUNTRY: NORTHERN IRELAND, UK
DISTANCE: 25 MILES