Discover the Untold Mourne

Annalong exported granite by sea. The harbour they built to do it is still standing.

150 men. Solid granite. Four years underground. And above them, one of the most beautiful mountains in Ireland.

The name came from a massacre. The bridge is where the smugglers began their climb into the mountains.

A mountain lake tucked beneath Slieve Binnian that shifts from black to blue depending on the light.

A hidden path through the High Mournes, worn smooth by two centuries of illicit trade under moonlight.

A 40-tonne granite boulder balanced on the hillside above Rostrevor. Legend says a giant threw it from Scotland.

Kilkeel’s trawlermen had chased herring for generations. Then strange creatures started filling the nets.

Drumena Cashel has stood in the fields near Castlewellan for 1,500 years. The walls are still shoulder-height.

Lone hawthorns stand untouched in cleared fields across the Mournes. Nobody planted them there. Nobody dares move them.

Half on the mountain, half on the sea. The men of the Mourne coast lived a double life — and the harbours are still working.

The warrior who dived into Slieve Gullion's summit lake and emerged an old man. The lake is still there.

A mysterious glow seen on the tor of Slieve Binnian that has unsettled walkers for generations.

How Slieve Donard got its bald summit, according to the storytellers of the Mournes.

A 50-tonne capstone balanced on ancient stones near Hilltown for five millennia. They call it Finn’s Finger.

Two castles. Two kingdoms. One lough between them. For eight hundred years, Greencastle has watched the border.

Hilltown was the smugglers’ distribution hub. The pubs are still there. The stories haven’t stopped.

An ice house hidden in the hillside, built to store the winter harvest for a country estate below.

Kilkeel in the golden age of the herring fleet, when the harbour never slept.

Brendan Carty built a distillery at the foot of the Mournes. The whiskey tastes of the landscape.

A 3-metre capstone balanced on three slender legs, on the slopes of Slieve Croob. The entire Mourne range spread before it.

Sheelagh rode into these mountains and never came back. The lough that bears her name is the largest natural lake in the Mournes.

A deep chasm on the coast road. A woman running for her life. And the question argued in pubs ever since: did the eggs survive?

American soldiers stationed in the shadow of the Mournes carved their names into the trees before Normandy. Most never came back.

The Mourne Wall: built entirely by hand over 18 years, linking 15 mountain summits in a single unbroken line.

Northern Ireland’s first bean-to-bar chocolate maker, crafting on the Mourne coast with views across Carlingford Lough. Visits and tastings available.

The exact spot where the songwriter sat and watched the mountains sweep down to the sea.

Fifteen hundred years ago, a man walked to the top of Northern Ireland's highest mountain and decided to stay.

A thousand workers. Ten years of blasting. Nine men who never came home. The silence gave the valley its name.

A stretch of mountain road near Spelga Dam where your car rolls the wrong way. Physics says one thing. The locals say another.

Downpatrick Cathedral: the burial place of Ireland's patron saint, on a hill overlooking the plain where he preached.

Two wells, two bathhouses, and a ruined church in a sheltered valley. For centuries, hundreds came here on Midsummer Eve.

Game of Thrones fans come here for the Haunted Forest. They walk past 300 years of architectural gems without knowing.

Craft beer brewed on a working farm near Castlewellan since 1996. Every beer named after the landscape.