Mahee Island, south of Castle Espie Wildlife and Wetlands Trust bird sanctuary, has a lovely golf course with panormic views (9) and extensive ruins of a 10th century monastery and a castle, as has Skettrick Island nearby with its excellent oyster and mussel beds and attractively situated bar and restaurant with the intriguing name of Daft Eddy’s.

Reached by winding lanes and sinuous causeways, Nendrum monastic site on Mahee is one of Strangford Lough’s most evocative locations. Three easily identified concentric dry built masonry walls divide the old site into three separate precincts, each precinct increasing in size, outwards from the central monastic buildings.

In the two outer circles of springy sward are suggestions of other associated buildings – built of stone bonded clay – craft workshops for carpenters and braziers, a school. Crucibles and tongs, excavated long ago, revealed the trades. A display set between the outer two walls gives a fine sense of the place and reveals some of the decorated carved stone work; others – including the famous Nendrum brass bell – are to be found in the Ulster Museum. St. Mochoai, who died around AD 500, the site’s founder, was, it is claimed, converted to Christianity by St. Patrick himself.

Isolated on an island, the monastery had a certain security; but not enough to withstand the raids of marauding Vikings sailing up the lough in their high powered ships in 974. John de Courcy, a hard man in his time, gave the land to the monks of St. Bees from Northumberland in 1179 but by 1288 there were only two monks in the cell and it was then disposed of.

The castle at the end of the causeway, three stories in a most perilous condition, it would seem, was built with a murder hole, in 1570.

Further south in Killyleagh, birthplace of Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum, is a little port with a fairytale turreted Castle. The present owners have recently introduced popular music concerts in the castle.