Welcome to Harry & Meghan – Baron & Baroness of Kilkeel!

We are absolutely delighted to hear the news, putting our wee town on the world map!

Clearly we #loveKILKEEL and living in the beautiful Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland, but for those of you around the world who have no idea where N.Ireland is, let alone our wee town, here’s a guide for everything you need to know…

So, what’s the craic in Kilkeel?

‘What’s the craic?’ is the Norn Iron (local name for Northern Ireland in our accent) expression for ‘what’s going on?’. Meghan and Harry might have to learn a few of these, so we’ve put a lingo guide below…

Kilkeel comes from the Irish Cill Chaoil, meaning “church of the narrow”, a 14th century church, the ruins of which remain today. Locally we’re recognised as the Seafood Capital of Northern Ireland, our harbour bringing in ~60% of NI’s fishing catch. We’re known around the world for our Dublin Bay Prawns (huge tasty langoustine, relatives of the lobster family) and our King Scallops – wild caught from the deep cold waters of the Irish Sea – world class seafood that we’re proud to call our own!

Originally we were a farming community. Over the centuries our locals moved down towards the sea and, using their farming skills, a small economy of seaweed farmers popped up. But it was when the harbour was built in the 1850’s that the fishing industry was finally able to land its catch and the fishing industry was born.

Kilkeel | Empowering women

Since November the social enterprise project MADE in Mourne [www.madeinmourne.com], based in Kilkeel, has lead the way locally as a positive ‘can do’ hub focused on empowering women. >90% set up and run by females under 35 [when we launched I was 8 months pregnant!], we’re empowering young women to launch business to develop a generation of Mum’trepreneurs who can create businesses that will generate long term, sustainable jobs for our children. We’re not shying away from the fact that it’s really difficult to run businesses from Kilkeel as we’re pretty remote and off the beaten track. But if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere right!

Locally we’ve been inspired by strong powerful women like Meghan, so to have her connection to our wee place is a great inspiration to our young women coming through. Our MADE in Mourne strategy (as mum’s): “Any kid from Kilkeel with talent and ambition can make it big!”. Simple as that.

We’d like to think Meghan and Harry would approve! ?

How to get to Kilkeel

Northern Ireland is tiny, pretty much 2 hours drive anywhere. Kilkeel is just over an hour from Belfast, an hour and a half from both our airports.

We’re also just over an hour from Dublin. If you’re coming up from Ireland, take the Carlingford Ferry which comes into Greencastle, a few miles from Kilkeel, across from the stunning town of Carlingford.

Whilst they are here Harry and Meghan can take a trip to Carlingford, a place we’d recommend tourists visit as part of their trip to the Mournes. We often have American tourists in Kilkeel tracing their ancestral routes. The Carlingford Ferry is the scenic route in, by far the best way to experience Kilkeel as a Gateway to the Mournes.

A few local Kilkeel / Northern Irish expressions Harry and Meghan might like to learn …

‘Bout ya’? – How are you?
‘What’s the craic?’ – how are you?
‘Wind your neck in!’ – calm down!
‘Keep ‘er lit! – keep going
Work away – sure / by all means
Norn Iron – local dialect slang for Northern Ireland

Our 1.8 million population is only 0.025% of the world’s 7 billion population, yet we punch above our weight with our world class golfers (McIlroy – from the world’s oldest Golfing Union), musicians (Van Morrison), actors (Liam Neeson, Jamie Dornan), storytellers (C.S Lewis), footballers (George Best), poets (Seamus Heaney), inventors (Pantridge’s defibrillator, ejector seat)… the list goes on and on. With the world cup coming up, did you know that the penalty spot was a local invention too…?