Be honest about Ballymena and it makes more sense: the town itself is a busy mid-Antrim market town in County Antrim, pleasant enough but not the reason you’ve come. The reasons sit on its edges. If you do one thing, climb Slemish, the stump of an extinct volcano east of the town, traditionally the hillside where the boy who became Saint Patrick is said to have herded sheep as a slave. If you do two, add Gracehill, the Moravian settlement just outside town. Both are short drives out, so treat the town as the base it is, and plan each outing separately.
Slemish Mountain
Slemish rises east of Ballymena, near Broughshane, and you can see why early people thought it special: it stands clean out of flat farmland, a volcanic plug. The climb is short but it earns the word, steep, rough and slick after rain. Wear proper boots, not trainers, and check conditions first, since in low cloud the views that are the whole point disappear. Saint Patrick’s Day on 17 March brings a pilgrimage up the hill.
Gracehill
Gracehill, just outside the town, was laid out in the 1760s by the Moravians, a Protestant church of central-European origin, and it survives as a complete piece of 18th-century planning: a square, the plain church at its centre, separate terraces that once housed the single brethren and single sisters, and God’s Acre, the graveyard where everyone gets the same flat stone regardless of rank. It is recognised for its Moravian heritage as a World Heritage property.
Arthur Cottage and Galgorm
A few miles out at Cullybackey is Arthur Cottage, an 18th-century thatched cottage that was the ancestral home of Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st President of the United States. Arthur himself was born in Vermont, but his father emigrated from here. It’s a small thing, and a genuine thread between Antrim and the American story. Check opening arrangements before you go.
For something at the other end of the scale, Galgorm on the western edge of town has grown around a 17th-century castle into a large spa-and-golf resort. It’s primarily a place to stay and be pampered rather than a half-day’s sightseeing.
In the town
The Braid on the High Street houses the Mid-Antrim Museum, with exhibitions on the linen trade and local history. Check the museum listing for visitor information and exhibitions.
The People’s Park, north of the centre, is the town’s green heart, a lakeside park given to Ballymena by Sir Robert Adair in 1870. It has a steel sculpture, Five Apples, by the Japanese artist Shiro Masuyama. Check gate times before going.
Where the Adair castle once stood, a Scottish-Baronial pile built between 1865 and 1887 by the Belfast firm of Lanyon and Lynn and gutted by fire in 1922, there’s now a quiet heritage garden of low walls and earthworks by the Braid River. There’s a Norman motte at Harryville on the south side of town, and the town’s early-Christian roots reach back to the 5th to 7th centuries.
The town carries its own scars of Irish history: in the 1798 rebellion, United Irishmen took Ballymena and stormed the market hall, killing three of its defenders. Market rights were granted by Charles I in 1626, and the place is proud to claim the actor Liam Neeson as a son of the town.
Getting there and around
Ballymena is on the Belfast–Derry railway. Use Translink for current rail and bus services, and check parking arrangements in the centre before you arrive. The obvious onward run is east into the Glens of Antrim and the Causeway Coast, with Antrim town and its castle gardens to the south.