The Honeycomb at Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland

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New £100m Irish links gets green light

Proposals to build a £100 million golf complex on Northern Ireland’s picturesque north coast are set to go ahead.

More than 10 years after the first planning application was lodged, the developers have overcome National Trust resistance and are set to begin work on the site which is close to the famous Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, the Belfast Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, the new Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort & Spa will feature a championship golf links, a five-star 120-bedroom hotel and 75 villas and will create work for at least 360 people.

Construction is expected to start some time soon so as to meet the developers plans to have the course and accommodation ready by the summer of 2014, but further details should become clear when Northern Ireland Environment minister Alex Attwood makes an official announcement this week.

The project is headed by a New York-based Northern Ireland management expert and scientist, Dr Alistair Hanna, 67, originally from Holywood in County Down - the home town of US Open champion Rory McIlroy.

British Open champion Darren Clarke lives a few miles from the proposed course, close to the neighbouring Royal Portrush Golf Club where the next Irish Open is set to be played this summer.

Graeme McDowell, a friend of both McIlroy and Clarke and himself a US Open champion (2010) is also a Portrush native.

The first planning application for this multi-million development was submitted in 2001 and then renewed six years later.

In the interim there was considerable opposition by the National Trust, owners of the nearby Giant’s Causeway, a Unesco world heritage site where a new visitors’ centre is due to open this summer, also after a lengthy planning process.

To read more about the Giants Causeway,