By the Moyle Shore, Volume One is the story of a stretch of coast from Ballycastle to Ballintoy. The book covers all aspects of the people and their work on land and sea.

There are blacksmiths, boat builders, cave-dwellers, coastguards, emigration agents, fishermen, flowerers, innkeepers, kelp burners, masons, nailmakers, quarry workers, saddlers, school teachers, smugglers, thatchers and many others.

Many of them are given a potted family history as genealogy features strongly throughout the four chapters. Social activities include playing cricket, handball and shinny, horseshoe throwing, horse racing, dancing at the crossroads, regattas, pilgrimages to holy wells, collecting seagull eggs and the trapping of rabbits.

The structures which map the landscape are explored, castles to cottages, forts, children's graveyards, lime kilns, lint dams, ice-houses, kelp pits, old roadways and boat houses. Many are disappearing and some will be gone within two decades at the most.

Emigration features heavily, as does seasonal migration to the Scottish harvests, which ceased only in the 1930's. Forgotten aspects of everyday life c1920 includes using the oil of fish (glashan) for thining paint and as fuel for lamps. Blackbirds were trapped for food, butter was wrapped in cabbage leaves and salmon were kept frozen for long periods in ice-houses.

Place names relating mainly to the shore have been recorded from the oldest residents.

By The Moyle Shore may be purchased direct from; Danny Morgan,
Dalriada Publishing,
35 Mayo Drive,
Ballycastle,
Co. Antrim
BT54 5EH
Phone: +44(0)28207 69608

Cost £8.95 plus £1.25 postage and packaging (within U.K.)
Rest of Europe add £2.50 p&p.
United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand add £2.00 p&p