43 Main St, Portrush BT56 8BL
Part of the same labyrinthine complex as the Londonderry Hotel, the Atlantic Bar boasts one of the nicest fronts we have seen in a small pub. You’ll expect to see a chap with a pipe, tweed jacket and scarf parking his Lagonda outside. From the mosaic doorway entrance between curved-glass, green-tiled, fine-timbered window fronts, to its split level interior, rattan chairs and terracotta flags this is a bar to be savoured by lovers of the pre-war era. The flagged floor, by the way, came from the Clondalkin Paper Mills, the bar counter is the original one, and the wooden uprights first saw service in an old mill in Kells, Co. Antrim. It’s little wonder that the Atlantic is favoured by students and university clubs, such is its easy-going, slightly rakish air of thirties eccentricity. Upstairs is the Docksiders BAR, with a ship’s mast and full sails and rigging from the ground floor right to the topmost ceiling. This is a huge, rambling maze of a place, with beautiful timbers and woodworking everywhere, little alley-ways of stone streets, dusty window displays of antiques, harbour warning lights, flagged floors, turf fires and pine fireplaces and lofty barns. It’s like a fishing village cum warehouse dockside such as Dickens would have had in mind when describing scenes in Oliver Twist or David Copperfield or The Old Curiosity Shop. You’ll not be surprised to hear that it’s the home of a Folk Club and growing in popularity all the time. There’s a fresh wind blowing in the Atlantic and a new captain at the helm!