From 1948 until 1966 The Ulster Automobile Club (UAC) held an annual Hill Climb using the western end of the public road that climbed behind the iconic obelisk shaped Knockagh monument, which dominated the skyline overlooking Belfast and the surrounding area around Belfast Lough. The hillclimb is located outside Woodburn Primary School in Carrickfergus. It is usually held in early October it marked the end of the local Hill Climb season. Unlike the UAC’s other British Hill Climb Championship at Craigantlet, Knockagh was a Clubman type event, in those less specialist days, drivers often using their everyday saloons, or sports cars.

However, the entry list also included three of Ulster’s most famous drivers, no doubt honing their skills on a course with its mix of challenging fast and slow corners. Monte Carlo Rally winners Ronnie Adams and Paddy Hopkirk competed here, while the winner in 1953 was Desmond Titterington in his Allard, who two years later would be driving works Jaguar and Mercedes Benz sports cars, at the top level in International racing. Record holder was local garage owner John Pringle who climbed in 48.77 seconds in 1962, driving a Formula One Cooper Climax.

By the mid nineteen sixties with an increasingly crowded local motorsport calendar, entries began to fall away and the UAC dropped Knockagh from their list of events. Although, exactly half a century later in 2016 with a resurgence in Hill Climbing they decided to reintroduce the famous hill.

The UAC with their long experience of promoting motorsport on public roads have always been very conscious of retaining the goodwill of local residents and land owners along the courses used. The original hill had seen quite a bit of new house building since it was last used, so the Club decided to use the much less populated eastern end of the Knockagh Road. The new course starts just above Woodburn Primary School, with a challenging lower section with its little stone bridge, before opening out to a very fast finish.

Knockagh, a round of The Northern Ireland Hill Climb Championship is usually held in September and still provides the traditional end of season and friendly atmosphere of its fondly remembered predecessor. Even at Clubman level, cars have become much more specialised and cars in everyday road use, would be unlikely to feature on todays entry list. However, always innovative, the UAC now include a Class for Mazda MX5’s, which today do provide an inexpensive way into motorsport. Images from Bill Swann.