Overview
Murlough became Ireland’s first nature reserve in 1967, and the dunes it protects are far older than that – a sand system built up over roughly 6,000 years, widely rated the finest dune-heath in the country. It runs along a peninsula between Dundrum Bay and the open sea in County Down, managed by the National Trust, and covers about 697 acres. Behind a four-mile Blue Flag beach, boardwalks thread through dune grassland and heath, with the Mourne Mountains and Slieve Donard rising across the bay. If you’ve only an hour, walk the main boardwalk straight out to the beach – it’s the quickest way to the seals and the best of the Mourne views.
A living history
The dunes have drawn people for millennia: excavations here have turned up Neolithic tools, pottery shards and Bronze Age burial mounds. The more recent layers are easier to read. Murlough House, built in 1857 for the 4th Marquess of Downshire as a summer residence, still stands near the reserve, linked to Keel Point by a granite bridge put up in 1893. During the Second World War the US Army trained across the dunes, with a rifle range and a tank park among the sands – which is why the reserve still asks you to report any old ordnance you come across to staff rather than touch it.
Wildlife and nature
Murlough is unusually rich in insects: more than 787 species of moth and 23 of butterfly have been recorded here. The prize is the Marsh Fritillary, a European-priority butterfly whose caterpillars depend on the devil’s-bit scabious that flowers across the heath in late summer.
Common and grey seals haul out on the shore below the dunes, usually somewhere between 50 and 130 of them, and the heath and grassland hold breeding meadow pipit, skylark, stonechat and linnet, with wildfowl out on the bay in winter.
The open heath doesn’t keep itself. The Trust grazes Exmoor ponies to hold back the scrub, and a five-year project is clearing four hectares of invasive sea buckthorn that would otherwise swamp the dunes.
Walking and the beach
A network of boardwalks and sandy paths loops through the dunes, heath and a patch of woodland, from a short stroll to a couple of hours if you take the longer circuits. The boardwalks are there to keep feet off the fragile marram grass, so stick to them.
The beach itself is a four-mile (6km) stretch of sand and shingle, a Blue Flag site good for swimming, surfing and kite-surfing, with lifeguards on patrol in July and August. Dogs are welcome but must be kept on leads; barbecues and fires are allowed only in the two designated car parks (the main one and Dundrum); and drones and metal detectors aren’t permitted anywhere in the reserve.
Guided walks and seasons
The visitor centre runs free guided walks and family activity days in the warmer months – dune ecology, butterflies, birds, and talks for children about the seals and insects – with dates posted at the centre and on its website. There are volunteer conservation days too, if you fancy an afternoon of dune restoration. The reserve changes hard with the seasons: waders and nesting warblers in spring, butterflies and beach crowds in summer, purple scabious in autumn, and flocks of wildfowl and hauled-out seals through winter.
Practical information
- Opening hours: the reserve is open daily from 8am to 7pm. The catch is the car park: its gate is locked at 5pm, so if you’ve driven in, be back at the car before then even though the reserve technically stays open later.
- Parking: £5 for non-members, free for National Trust members. The machines are pay-and-display and cashless, so bring a card, not coins.
- Admission: free.
- Accessibility: a boardwalk runs out through the dunes for wheelchair users, with accessible parking and toilets, but there’s no wheelchair access down onto the beach itself.
- Getting there: the reserve is signposted off the A2 near Keel Point, just north of Dundrum, and a car is easiest. On public transport, the Ulsterbus 20 between Belfast and Newcastle stops at the Lazy BJ Caravan Park, a short walk away.
Dundrum, just down the road, has a ruined Norman castle worth the short climb for the view, and further south Annalong sits at the foot of the Mournes with a working harbour.
Time your walk for low tide and the seals off Keel Point, and keep an eye on the clock: the best of Murlough is the slow version, but the car park gate won’t wait past five.