A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Aontroim· Irish · main form · validated name
Antrim· English · main form
Place & story
Water around the county
Antrim stretches between Belfast Lough, Lough Neagh, the Bann and the northern and eastern seas. Lewis’s 1837 county account describes a landscape shaped by lake shores, a river boundary and a long coast.[2]
A glen in detail
At Glenariff, DAERA records streams, waterfalls, cliffs and scree beneath a basalt escarpment. Ash and hazel woodland occupy parts of the protected glen.[3]
Folklore & tradition
The swans on the Sea of Moyle
In P. W. Joyce’s translation of the Children of Lir, the four children spend three hundred years as swans on the Sea of Moyle, between Ireland and Scotland. Their sea exile follows a spell placed upon them by their stepmother. The harsh waters supply the story’s northern setting. This is a literary legend connected with the channel off Antrim, not an account of historical people or an event confined within the county boundary.[4]
Published county totals use the boundaries at each census; administrative changes can affect comparisons. Early figures exclude members of the armed forces. Belfast is excluded; boundary transfers also affected these figures. They do not describe the modern council district.
View population figures
Antrim — historical county, excluding Belfast — census population
Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim illustration: based on a Giant's Causeway by Anne Burgess. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added; visitors omitted, path and geological details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. Additional reference: Basalt Columns, The Giant's Causeway by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0.
placenames