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heritage · Wednesday 1 July 2026 · Various 
Ballycastle Museum Summer Opening 2026
At Ballycastle Museum · Castle Street, Ballycastle, Co. Antrim BT54 6AS
At Ballycastle Museum · Castle Street, Ballycastle, Co. Antrim BT54 6AS
Ballycastle Museum opens its summer season through July and August 2026, giving visitors free access to one of the most distinctive local collections on the north Antrim coast. The building itself - a Grade B+ listed 18th-century courthouse and market house on Castle Street - is worth pausing outside before you go in. Inside, the focus is tight and genuinely interesting: the archaeology, arts and crafts, and cultural history of the Glens of Antrim and the town of Ballycastle itself. It suits anyone with an interest in Irish history, whether you have children in tow or you’re travelling solo.
The permanent collection covers several distinct threads. Bronze Age finds give the museum its oldest layer, with archaeological material that roots the area in prehistory. The display on Boyd’s 18th-century Ballycastle tells the story of the town’s industrial development under the Boyd family, who transformed it in the 1700s. Two exhibits stand out as genuinely rare. The first is the Taise Banner - the only known surviving banner from the very first Feis na nGleann, held in 1904. That festival, organised by F.J. Bigger and others, was a landmark moment in the Irish language and cultural revival, and the banner was designed by artist John Campbell to represent the nine glens of Antrim. The second highlight is the material from the Irish Home Industries Workshop, a significant collection connected to the Arts and Crafts Revival in Ireland. Much of this work was displayed in the Irish Pavilion at the 1904 St Louis World Fair - a remarkable piece of Irish cultural history to find in a small-town museum.
The collection also holds works by Irish artists including J.W. Carey, Rosamund Praeger and John Campbell, alongside watercolours by A. Nicholl and John Nixon.
Admission is free. Opening hours for summer 2026 have not been confirmed publicly at time of writing - in recent seasons the museum has opened Friday and Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday from 2pm to 5pm, with the Friends of Ballycastle Museum extending the season on a voluntary basis.
Ballycastle sits at the northern end of the A44, roughly 55 miles north of Belfast via the A26 through Ballymoney or the coast road through Cushendall. Ulsterbus connects Ballycastle to Coleraine, Ballymoney and Belfast - check Translink for the current timetable as services are less frequent than on the main corridor. The museum is on Castle Street in the town centre, a short walk from the seafront and the Diamond. Parking is available in the town centre car parks a few minutes on foot.
The town has a working harbour, a good beach and a direct ferry link to Rathlin Island - Ireland’s only inhabited offshore island - making the museum a natural first stop before a full day out. The Ould Lammas Fair, one of Ireland’s oldest fairs, returns to Ballycastle each August Bank Holiday weekend. There is more to see in Ballycastle and across Co. Antrim.
Heading to Ballycastle Museum in Ballycastle? Antrim has plenty more to see. Read the Ballycastle area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.