Glenarm Castle

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Glenarm Castle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is the ancestral home of the Earls of Antrim.

There has been a castle at Glenarm since the 13th century, and it is at the heart of one of Northern Ireland’s oldest estates.

John Bisset, expelled from Scotland in 1242 for murdering a rival during a tournament, promised to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but instead he acquired lands in Ireland between Larne and Ballycastle from Hugh de Lacy, the Earl of Ulster. Bisset made Glenarm his capital, and by 1260 had built a castle at the centre of the present village. The former village courthouse incorporates some of its walls and an immured human skeleton was found there in the 1970s.

The last MacEoin Bisset died in 1522, fighting the O'Donnells. Their lands were then seized by the MacDonnells, the Bissets' former partners, who occupied the old Glenarm Castle.

The present castle was begun by Sir Randal MacDonnell, 1st Earl of Antrim, in 1636. It is currently owned by Alexander McDonnell, 9th Earl of Antrim and occupied by his son Randal, Viscount Dunluce and his wife Aurora.

The Castle is open to the public between May and September. In July of every year the grounds are the site of a world class Highland Games.