Elegance, space and quality

Tommy Barker finds a piece of Van Morrison’s Coney Island in east Cork

THE name Ardglass mightn’t mean too much down south, but the up-there Co Down resort is home to a links 18-hole golf course and, more memorably, has been immortalised in the song “Coney Island” by the illustrious Van Morrison.

Van the Man eulogises a shoreline drive out from Downpatrick and Killyleagh, name-checks places in the Lecale district like Coney Island and notes the imperative to “stop off at Ardglass for a couple of jars of mussels and some potted herrings, in case we get famished before dinner...”