Cloughey, Clochaigh, Co. Down

Clochaigh · Co. Down

A mile and a half of white sand, a James Braid links course, and a racing circuit on the old airfield.

Cloughey is a long, low village strung along the A2 on the east shore of the Ards Peninsula, between Ballyhalbert to the north and Portaferry round the tip to the south. The whole place is shaped by the beach: a mile and a half of firm white sand in a gentle arc, with dunes behind it and the Irish Sea in front. The original village was a row of coastguard cottages and a lifeboat station at the south end. The terraces along Main Road and Quarter Road were built as holiday homes in the 1920s and 30s, and that's still mostly what the village does.

There's a links course, an old tower house, and a motor-racing circuit on the wartime airfield two minutes inland. There isn't, really, a town centre. There's no marquee restaurant, and the named pubs are all in Portavogie or Kircubbin five minutes either way. The holiday parks have their own bars and chippers and the caravan trade keeps the village afloat in summer. The rest of the year, it's just people who live here and the dog walkers on the strand.

Come for the beach and the golf. Come for the drive - the coast road from Portaferry up to Donaghadee is one of the better hours of road on the island. Don't come expecting a session in the village; do come expecting the wind off the Irish Sea to do something for you that no amount of indoor entertainment ever will.

Population

1,075 (2011)

Walk score

Mile and a half of beach, end to end

Founded

Coastguard cottages at the south end of the beach; holiday homes from the 1920s

Coords

54.4694° N, 5.4458° W

01 / 08

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The strand

Cloughey Bay - 1.5 miles of firm white sand.

A long crescent backed by dunes, looking east into the Irish Sea. The dunes are an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a boardwalk keeps your feet off the protected flora. Seaside Award 2025/26. Kite-surfers most windy days; quiet on still ones.

Walks & outings → 02 The castle

Kirkistown Castle, 1622.

A three-storey tower house with the remains of a bawn, traditionally built by Roland Savage of Ballygalget. The ground is marshy and the tower has been gently sinking for four centuries. Iron braces and buttresses added in the late 19th century. Free to walk up to.

Stories & lore → 03 The circuit

Kirkistown Circuit, on the old RAF airfield.

The only club-owned racing circuit in the British Isles. Laid out on the runways and perimeter roads of the wartime aerodrome and racing since 1953. You hear it before you see it on race weekends.

Stories & lore →

02 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Cloughey Holiday Park bar & kitchen	Caravan park bar/restaurant	€€	The main food option in the village itself. Bar, evening entertainment, kids' club, on-site restaurant. Open to non-residents. Doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't and that's the whole point.
The chipper at the south end of the beach	Takeaway	€	Small convenience store with a takeaway counter at the southern end of the strand. Fish, chips, ice cream. The right thing to eat on a bench in the dunes.
Portavogie and Kircubbin	A note on dinner	-	If you want a sit-down dinner, drive. The New Quays in Portavogie (five minutes north) for prawns off the boat; the Saltwater Brig between Kircubbin and Portaferry (fifteen minutes) for pints and seafood since 1765.

03 / 08

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Cloughey Holiday Park	Caravan & camping park	Direct beach access, twelve-month season. Touring pitches, statics, lodges. Showers, laundry, wifi, the lot. The biggest single accommodation in the village by a long way.
Ringbuoy Caravan Park	Caravan park	The other Cloughey caravan park, smaller and quieter. Touring pitches on the dunes side of the road.
Seaview Lodge Cloughey	Self-catering lodge	Self-catering, sleeps a family, view of the bay. The kind of place a Belfast family books for a week in July.
A cottage on the Quarter Road	Self-catering	The 1920s holiday terraces still rent. Walk out the door and you're on the sand. Book early for summer.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

The sinking tower

Kirkistown Castle

Built around 1622 by Roland Savage of Ballygalget, possibly reusing an earlier site. Three storeys, the remains of a bawn around it, a barn added later. The Savages were a Norman family who had held the south Ards since the 13th century and the castle was the seat of one branch. The ground underneath is marshy and the tower has been settling almost since it was built. In the late 19th century someone finally bolted iron braces across the walls and threw buttresses up the sides to stop the whole thing leaning into the sea. It is still there. It is still leaning, gently.

Before the Savages

The Knights of St John

Before the tower house there was a commandery - a religious-military outpost - of the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller. They held land along the Ards in the medieval period. A reference in 1744 to 'the late monastery of St John of Jerusalem' is one of the last mentions; by then the foundation was long gone. The Savages took the site and built the tower house on top. The parish graveyard sits inside an older rath - a ringfort from the first millennium - with the ruins of a medieval church inside it, believed to be the Church of Ardmacossce mentioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas in 1306.

Kirkistown Castle Golf Club, 1934

James Braid laid out the course

The golf club was founded on 3 September 1902, with Major General W E Montgomery leasing the Sandgrass Farm at Cloughey for the purpose. The course was extended to 18 holes in 1929. In 1934 the legendary James Braid - five-time Open champion, designer of Carnoustie and Gleneagles - came over for a day, walked the ground, and laid out the present course. He spent the morning marking out the tees and greens and the afternoon shaping the bunkers. The dip in front of the first tee, and the depression behind the third green, are both there because sand was dug out of the course in 1941 to build the runways at Kirkistown and Ballyhalbert aerodromes.

RAF Kirkistown to club-owned track

The airfield and the circuit

RAF Kirkistown opened in July 1941 as a satellite for RAF Ballyhalbert, three concrete runways laid down on flat ground a mile inland from the beach. Late in the war the Navy took it over and renamed it HMS Corncrake II, the standard Navy fiction of treating shore bases as ships. After the war the runways went quiet. In 1953 the 500 Motor Racing Club of Ireland turned up, marked out a course with straw bales on the old east-west runway and the northern perimeter road, and ran race control out of a parked double-decker bus. Le Mans winner Ivor Bueb won the 500cc Championship of Ireland here in 1957 a fortnight after his Le Mans victory. The club leased the land until the 1970s, then bought it outright - making Kirkistown the only club-owned and operated permanent motor racing circuit in the British Isles.

Before the road came

Coal under sail

Before the coast road was improved, the village's coal came in by sea from Scotland. Two-masted schooners would sail into Cloughey Bay at full tide and drop anchor. As the tide ran out, horses and carts would go down the strand and unload the cargo straight off the deck onto the wet sand. The schooner refloated on the next tide and sailed away. It is hard to picture from the modern beach; the dunes have moved, the boardwalk is new, the boats are gone. But the bay is shallow and gentle enough that it worked, for a couple of centuries, as a working port that wasn't really a port.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Cloughey Bay strand Top of the beach to bottom on firm white sand. Best at low tide, into the wind, alone if you can manage it. The boardwalk behind the dunes is a parallel option if the sand is full.

1.5 miles each waydistance

However long you havetime

Kirkistown Castle and the graveyard Park at the castle, walk around the tower and the bawn, then over to the parish graveyard inside the rath. The medieval church ruin is in the middle. Free.

1 km loopdistance

30 mintime

Cloughey to Kearney village South along the coast road to Kearney, a National Trust hamlet of restored fishermen's cottages on the lough side. A walk through fields and along the shore. Quiet end of the peninsula.

6 km returndistance

2 hourstime

Round the golf links Public path skirts the seaward side of the Kirkistown Castle links. Sea on one side, fairways on the other. Stay off the course unless you've paid.

4 km perimeterdistance

1 hourtime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The dunes flower up, the beach is empty, and the wind has lost its winter edge. The best months for a long walk on the strand without seeing anyone.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The caravan parks fill, the beach gets a steady Belfast crowd at weekends, and the circuit runs race meetings most months. Mid-week is fine; sunny Saturdays the car parks back up onto the A2.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Kite-surfing weather comes back. The golf course is still open and quiet. The light on the Irish Sea is the reason landscape painters keep coming here.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The village empties. The chipper has reduced hours. The Holiday Park bar is the only thing open most nights. Come for the storms, not the company.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Looking for a named village pub

There isn't one in the way you mean. The traditional pubs in this stretch of peninsula are in Portavogie (five minutes north) and Kircubbin (ten minutes west). The Holiday Park bar covers Cloughey itself.

Race weekends if you want quiet

Kirkistown Circuit runs club meetings most months from spring to autumn. The cars are loud and the sound carries across the bay. Check the circuit's calendar before you book a beach week in July.

Driving onto the dunes

The dunes are an Area of Special Scientific Interest. The boardwalk is there for a reason. Use it.

Comparing it to Newcastle or Portrush

It isn't a resort. It's a long beach, a golf course, a castle, and a string of holiday houses. If you want amusement arcades and chip-shop strips, you're on the wrong coast.

Getting there.

By car

Belfast to Cloughey is about an hour and ten minutes via Newtownards and the A20/A2 down the peninsula. From Newtownards itself, allow 40 minutes. The Portaferry car ferry across Strangford Lough is the scenic approach from the Lecale side.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus route 9/10 runs Belfast to Portaferry via Newtownards, Greyabbey, Ballywalter, Portavogie and Cloughey - roughly hourly Monday to Saturday, sparser on Sundays.

By train

No train. Bangor (line from Belfast) is the nearest station, then bus or 35 minutes by car.

By air

Belfast City (BHD) is about 50 minutes by car; Belfast International (BFS) about an hour and a half; Dublin is two and a quarter hours on a good run.