Carlingford is one of those villages that looks small until you start poking around. Norman castles, ghost stories, oysters, leprechauns. Here are a dozen things visitors usually do not know about the place until a local tells them in a pub, using their amazing irish slang.
1. King John actually slept here
The castle on the harbour is named King John's Castle because King John of England really did stay in it, in 1210, on his way to put down a rebellion. The visit lasted two nights. The walls have lasted eight hundred years.
2. The leprechauns are protected by EU law
Slieve Foy, the mountain behind the village, is officially designated as a habitat for leprechauns under European environmental rules. A local resident applied in 2009 and the EU approved it. There is a leprechaun hunt every March that draws thousands of children.
3. The oysters travel a hundred metres
The Carlingford oyster, native to the lough, is on most of the village's restaurant menus within an hour of being pulled from the water. The Oyster Festival runs every August, and the tasting tents on the harbour are open from late morning to evening.
4. Three Norman buildings, one street
Carlingford has more standing Norman buildings per square kilometre than any village in Ireland. The Castle, the Mint, Taaffe's Castle and the Tholsel are all within a few minutes' walk of each other. Most visitors miss two of them.
5. The Tain Way starts at the harbour
The 40-kilometre Tain Way walking trail follows part of the route described in Tain Bo Cuailnge, the great Irish epic about a cattle raid. The Tain literally happened on these mountains, in the version that has come down to us. The trailhead is in the village.
6. Carlingford Lough is shared with Northern Ireland
Look across the lough and you are looking at the Mourne Mountains in County Down. The international border runs through the middle of the water. There is no checkpoint and the ferries cross both sides freely.
7. The Lady's Finger is older than most countries
The narrow stone tower called the Lady's Finger, on the road out toward Greenore, dates from the 14th century. It is taller than it looks from the village.
8. The medieval streetplan still works
If you walk up Tholsel Street and turn right at the square, you are following a Norman street pattern that has not changed since 1180. Almost every building on those streets is built on the original Norman foundations.
9. The local sailing club is one of Ireland's oldest
Carlingford Lough Yacht Club was founded in 1862. There are older clubs in Cork and Dun Laoghaire, but not many.
10. Greenore had its own railway
Until 1951 there was a passenger railway connecting Greenore, four kilometres east of Carlingford, with Dundalk and Newry. The Greenore Hotel at the end of the line was once the smartest seaside hotel on the east coast.