Washed-up munitions a reminder of Murlough’s military history

23 March 2022

THE news of a controlled explosion on Murlough beach last Thursday might sound shocking.

But it isn’t the first time that Army bomb disposal experts have detonated a suspected WWII mortar found in County Down’s sands.

Such ordnance washes up relatively frequently, assumed to have escaped the Beaufort Dyke trench in the Irish Sea, where massive amounts of munitions were dumped after the war — including 242 tons of four-inch mortars.

But stray munitions have also been found before in Murlough’s sand dunes, reflecting the area’s rich wartime history.

In fact, Murlough Nature Reserve — formerly known as the Dundrum Sandhills — has interesting history that extends far beyond WWII.

The name itself comes from the old Irish word ‘Muirbolc’, meaning ‘sea-bag’ (lagoon or inlet), and evidence of human activity in the 700-acre reserve extends back to around 3500 BC.

Archaeological digs in the 1950s unearthed multiple signs of burning, hundreds of pottery shards, worked flints and even carbonised hazelnut shells that confirm Neolithic and Bronze Age activity.

Much later, Murlough’s dunes were important for the Normans. They were used as a commercial rabbit warren when John De Courcy arrived and built Dundrum Castle in 1177.

The lucrative trade in rabbit pelts continued for centuries afterwards. Rabbits are still common today, although the population was decimated by the myxomatosis disease in the 1950s.

The 1950s was also when the National Trust began managing the habitat on behalf of its owners, the Hill family — commonly known as the Marquises of Downshire.

The Hill family came to the area in the late 18th century but had lived in Ireland since the late 1500s, when a young army officer named Moyses Hill, originally from Devon, was posted to Carrickfergus garrison in 1573 to command forces sent by Elizabeth I to subdue the rebellious O’Neill clan and colonise Ireland.

Moyses ended up staying in Ireland and marrying the sister of a local clan chief. In 1611, he was granted land at Cromlyn, an area which later took his surname and became known as Hillsborough. His descendants then acquired Murlough in 1783 and began using Murlough Farm as their summer residence.

They built Murlough House in 1857, which still stands today at the end of Keel Point — at the northern end of the beach. While built to have a spectacular sea view, stormy weather kept breaking the windows, so trees were planted around the house in 1910, and the woodland remains to this day.

In 1967, the 7th Marquis of Downshire, Arthur Hill, sold the surrounding land to the National Trust and then sold the house in 1973. The area became Ireland’s first nature reserve in 1977 and remains the most extensive dune heath in Ireland (it contains around 15% of the UK’s total coastal dune heathland).

But prior to being sold to the National Trust, Murlough House and the dunes were a hotbed of military activity – particularly during WWII. The house was a base for the US Army’s 1st Armoured Division and the 818th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

They built several firing ranges in the dunes, including, allegedly, a mortar range. Spare bombers and fighters were also hidden there as Murlough Farm had its own landing strip, called ‘19 Satellite Landing Ground’ (not to be confused with RAF Murlough Bay, a radar station on the Antrim coast).

Murlough beach itself was dotted with anti-aircraft and anti-invasion posts — whose rotting remnants are still visible today. They were dug-in when a full-scale German invasion was a threat in the early 1940s.

They were part of a counter-invasion strategy that centred on slowing or stopping the enemy at certain locations until other forces could be mustered and deployed. This involved constructing a so-called ‘coastal crust’ along beaches and inland ‘stop-lines’ along rivers, canals and high ground.

With Northern Ireland being prime invasion territory, a coastal crust was set up from Magilligan in the north-west to Newcastle in the south-east, alongside an inland stop-line along the route of the River Bann. Anti-aircraft landing posts, like those at Murlough, were important in preventing aircraft or boats from landing, but another type of defence was the centrepiece of this strategy: pillboxes.

When events at Dunkirk in 1940 sparked invasion panic, the Directorate of Fortifications and Works at the War Office was created to construct defensive systems around the UK’s beaches. The Royal Engineers and civilian contractors erected over 18,000 pillboxes by in a matter of days – including on eight of Northern Ireland’s beaches.

Such structures can still be seen at Magilligan, Portrush and Portstewart. County Down also has intact examples in Bangor, Donaghadee and on the Strangford shore between Comber and Newtownards. Beaches at Minerstown and Tyrella also had multiple pillboxes, as did Murlough. They were spaced to have interlocking arcs of fire, so invaders had little unchallenged space in which to land.

One of these pillboxes is still visible in Newcastle, on the beach just below the outdoor swimming pool. The remnants of the other are still visible at the northern end of Murlough, next to the inlet that feeds Dundrum Bay. Yet all that is left are large slabs of reinforced concrete as this pillbox was supposedly destroyed in the early days of the Troubles to prevent it being used to attack the nearby Ballykinlar Army Camp.

But these remains are now also under attack from erosion. They are gradually being absorbed by the sea. With this stretch of coastline losing five to ten metres of coastline a year, the remnants of the pillbox, originally built at an elevated height in the dunes, is even starting to be submerged at high tide.

What was once a reflection of an indominable spirit is now an unassuming pile of rubble used only as a seat for resting walkers – most of whom are unaware of its history. Soon, it will be completely forgotten and the only reminder of this stretch of coastline’s rich military history will be the occasional washed-up ordnance.

Ben Acheson spent seven years deployed to Afghanistan, including stints as Director of NATO’s political team and as Political Adviser to the EU Special Representative. His first book, Wolves Among Men: The Pashtun Tribes in Afghanistan, is due to be published later this year.

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