Baltray – links golf and standing stones

County Louth Golf Club is the reason most people drive the back roads to Baltray, a small village on the north shore of the River Boyne estuary in County Louth, about 8km from Drogheda. The members just call it ‘Baltray’, and it is consistently rated among the best links courses in Ireland. If you only have time for one thing here and you don’t play golf, walk the beach to the Irish Trader wreck instead – more on that below.

The course itself was laid out in its current form in 1938 by the architect Tom Simpson, working with his assistant Molly Gourlay, on land the club had occupied since 1892 when Baltray was still a salmon-fishing hamlet. It is a par-73 measuring 7,031 yards from the championship tees, with natural dunes, wind-shaped fairways and fast greens. It has hosted the Irish Open in 2004 and 2009, the R&A Boys Amateur Championship in 2025, the Irish Women’s Open Stroke Play Championship and Open Championship regional qualifying. The East of Ireland Amateur Championship is a regular fixture.

Green fees are not cheap: expect roughly €220–€240 in the high season (April to October), and check the club website for the current rate before you travel, as these change. The clubhouse has its own rooms and a restaurant that leans on seafood landed by the Clogherhead fleet, with views over the course. Both are open to non-members, but the rooms are limited – book well ahead for tournament weeks. Reserve the restaurant for summer weekends.

The standing stones

A short walk from the village centre brings you to two upright stones that have stood over the estuary for thousands of years. Archaeological work dates them to the Bronze Age, around 3000 BCE, which makes them among the oldest monuments in the Boyne Valley. The larger rises about 3m, the smaller about 2m. The pair is aligned toward Rockabill Island to mark the midwinter solstice sunrise, and they give a line of sight to the Fourknocks passage-tomb complex. There is no visitor centre and no signage to speak of – this is a field with two stones in it, which is part of the appeal if you like your ancient sites unmediated.

The beach, the dunes and the wreck

Baltray’s strand runs for about six miles, backed by a dune system that stretches east toward Clogherhead. It is a flat, open walk with views across to the Cooley and Mourne mountains, and seals haul out on the sandbanks at low tide. The dunes shift between marram-grass ridges, embryonic dunes and fixed grassland, with salt-marsh and lagoons behind them.

The rusted hull of the Irish Trader, which ran aground in 1974, sits on a remote stretch of sand reached from Termonfeckin. Go at low tide – the wreck all but disappears when the water is up.

The little terns

From May to August the Louth Nature Trust fences off a section of the beach to protect nesting little terns, an EU-protected Annex 1 species and one of Ireland’s quieter conservation successes. You can watch from outside the fence; you cannot go in, and the marked paths are there for a reason during the breeding season. The same lagoons and salt-marshes draw little egrets, oystercatchers, redshank and curlew, with the odd ringed plover, and wintering wildfowl gather on the mudflats. Bird-watching is best across those same summer months when the colony is active.

Flora and fauna

The dunes support marram grass (Ammophila arenaria), sea holly and sand sedge, while the salt-marsh is dominated by glasswort and Salicornia, which feed the wading birds. Grey seals are the most reliable sighting, on the sandbanks at low water.

Where to eat and drink

The village has one pub and a single shop with a petrol station for basic provisions. The golf-club restaurant is the main option for a sit-down meal, and you don’t have to be playing to eat there.

Getting there

Bus Éireann route 168 runs several times daily between Drogheda, Duleek, Ashbourne, Termonfeckin and Clogherhead, stopping in the village. The nearest railway station is Drogheda, about 8km away, on the Dublin–Belfast line. There is free parking at the clubhouse car park and at the beach access points near the standing stones.

Nearby

• Clogherhead, the working harbour village at the east end of the beach.
• The Cistercian ruins of Mellifont Abbey, a short drive inland.
• Carlingford Castle and the medieval town of Carlingford.
• The Cooley Peninsula Scenic Route, under Slieve Foy.

The standing stones are best timed for a clear December dawn, when the alignment to Rockabill does what it was built to do.