Crossword-Solution: BALLYCASTLE 11 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 18

The following is an extract from one of Hamilton's letters on the Antrim coast: "About the year 1770 the miners, in pushing forward an adit toward the bed of coal, at an unexplored part of the Ballycastle cliff, unexpectedly broke through the rock into a narrow passage, so much contracted and choked up with various drippings and deposits on its sides and bottom, as rendered it impossible for any of the workmen to force through, that they might examine it farther.

Three weeks before his death he writes to me from Ballycastle, County Antrim: "I wish you could see this place to-day bathed in sunlight, Rathlin Island in the offing, Fair Head with its stately profile straight across the bay, and beyond, in blue and grey, the lonely coast of Cantire, backed by Goatfell and the lovely hills of Argyle." He loved Ireland.

Fortune send us either, though!" It seemed as if this wish were not without reason; for though we cruised up and down for a fortnight, watching every bay and creek between Ballycastle and Sheep Haven, we came upon nothing but honest fisher craft and traders.

Accordingly the baffled road bends abruptly to the left, and turning its back upon the sea proceeds to climb the long, dreary slope of a flat-topped, uninteresting mountain, and then, having reached the highest point (which is scarcely to be discerned), descends, till once more the sea is come upon at the secluded little country town of Ballycastle.

That he knew it himself was gathered from the fact that more than once, during the summer, he had walked over to Ballycastle to attend Mass.