209 Agivey Rd, Aghadowey, Coleraine BT51 4AD
The famous Brown Trout Inn at Aghadowey is one of the county’s oldest hostelries, with records of its ownership in the McAleese family going back to 1725. At that time the bar was run from a country house at the centre of a ninety acre estate. Later the bar, which is now one of three in the complex, was one of a number of barns which surrounded the original courtyard, and you can still see in the wall the shape of a sheep gate which led the creatures out to be dipped.
Today there is too much going on to allow the owner to be publican and farmer combined. He is Bill O’Hara Junior, whose father inherited it from his great aunt Cissie O’Hara, a cousin of the last McAleeses to own the property. Bill may be better known as one of Northern Ireland’s Olympic Yachtsmen, although round Aghadowey he is establishing a reputation for charting a different kind of course – a challenging nine hole golf course through the Inn’s forest, with river and lake as added attrctions. Golf is free to residents, and fishing, in season, can be arranged in the adjacent Agivey River.
The excellent restaurant overlooks the green and acts as a kind of incentive to complete the course in the best possible time. The Inn also boasts four chalets with private facilities, and work is well under way on a delightful patio-garden area, surrounding a beautiful old stone wishing well about fifty feet deep.
Visitors from abroad love the ‘Irishness’ of the Brown Trout Inn, with its old stove and pile of turf, its low ceiling and rural setting, and its convenience to the attractions of the Causeway Coast.