Larne

A busy ferry port on the Antrim coast, 25 miles from Scotland, which archaeologists have used to name the 'Larnian' flint culture of Mesolithic Ireland. The Norse called the lough Ulfreksfjord, which survives as Olderfleet. In 1914 German, Austrian and Italian guns were landed here by night in the Larne gun-running, and the town has run an Irish dancing festival since 1928.

People have lived on this coast for millennia, and flints found here date from 6000 BCE onwards, giving archaeologists the term Larnian. The name comes from the territory of Latharna in Dál nAraidi; the town grew at the mouth of the River Inver, known as Inbhear an Latharna, and only in recent centuries did Latharna come to mean the town alone. Vikings were active here in the 10th and 11th centuries, and Snorri Sturluson records Connor, King of Ireland, beating Orkney Vikings at Ulfreksfjord in 1018. In the 12th and 13th centuries the area sat between Gaelic, Norse-Gaelic and Anglo-Norman powers; in 1205 Duncan of Galloway was granted lands around Larne Lough, and the Bissets, whose fort at Kilwaughter was burned in 1282, held the Glynns until at least 1522.

Drumalis, on a hill once occupied by a Premonstratensian friary, got its present house in 1872 and passed to the Sisters of Cross and Passion in 1930. In 1914, during the Home Rule crisis, weapons and ammunition were run into Larne and Bangor overnight and spread across Ulster. Irish dancing joined the town's music festival syllabus in 1928, and by the 1970s the festival drew 2,400 dancers. During the Troubles the town saw several IRA bombs, notably at the King's Arms hotel in 1980, as well as loyalist paramilitary activity.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Larne ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Ballylumford Dolmen · dolmen · 3 km
• Olderfleet Castle · castle · 1 km
• Ballygally Castle · castle · 6 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.