Dunluce Castle to the west of Bushmills is thought to date from the Fourteenth Century, (though some accounts suggest that it may have been a Norman foundation,) it was associated with the MacQuillans and later the MacDonnells who controlled land in both Antrim and Scotland in the Sixteenth Century. On the landward side was a plantation settlement built by the MacDonnells and extensive archaeolgical research has been underway here over recent years.
