There's been a rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede for at least three hundred and fifty years. Each year, local fishermen would build a bridge at the beginning of the salmon fishing season to allow access to the tiny island of Carrickarede in order to launch their boats.
During the annual migration, salmon would pass the island in large numbers between June and September.
In the 1970s, the bridge was a very basic construction with only one handrail and large gaps between the planks. In more recent times, a permanent and substantial bridge has been provided. This modern bridge is a tourist attraction playing host to around 250,000 people each year.
The bridge is twenty metres long and is suspended thirty metres above the rocks below.
The only down side to a visit is the one kilometre walk to the bridge which does involve one fairly steep section of steps. Well worth the trip and nowhere near as scary as it is made out to be.
Please wait...