1952–2000
Joey Dunlop
Five consecutive Formula 1 TT World Championships, 1982 to 1986. Twenty-six Isle of Man TT wins — still the record when he died. He won the 750cc and 600cc races in Tallinn on the Pirita-Kose-Kloostrimetsa circuit on 2 July 2000, then went out in the wet for the 125cc and didn't come back. The Honda-commissioned bronze on Seymour Street shows him on his SP1. His brother Robert, also a road racer, has an adjoining garden, opened in 2010 — Robert was killed at the North West 200 in 2008. Two brothers, one family, one town.
Scots pines, planted 1839
The Frosses Road
The A26 south of Ballymoney runs through a corridor of Scots pines planted by Sir Charles Lanyon — the same Lanyon who designed Queen's University Belfast — to keep the road from subsiding into the bog beneath. Fifty trees were felled in 1999 for road safety; another twenty-six in 2007. The remaining ones still arch overhead. People confuse it with the Dark Hedges. They're different roads, different trees, different stories.
Linen, fairs, the first Thursday
A market town, still
Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of 1837 records Ballymoney as a market-town with linen markets on the first and third Thursdays of every month, supplying London. The Ballymoney Show, founded 1902, is one of the oldest agricultural shows in Northern Ireland. The Drama Festival, founded 1933, is the oldest in Ireland. Neither has been stopped by anything, including the Troubles.
The narrow gauge that was
Dervock and Stranocum
From 1880 to 1950, a 17-mile narrow-gauge railway — the Ballycastle Railway — ran from Ballymoney out through Dervock to the coast at Ballycastle. Dervock station closed on 3 July 1950. The trackbed is still traceable in places. Stranocum is the village just before the Bregagh Road turn for the Dark Hedges, which means most coach tours pass through it without stopping. The locals consider this an improvement.