NI Beaches

All beaches

Portnacoo

South Down

Portnacoo is a coastal beach on the South Down coast. It is not a designated bathing water, so there is no routine water-quality monitoring here.

Conditions now

Air 8°C Partly cloudy
Swell 0.2m period 4 s · NE
Rain 0mm last 48 hours

Water quality

Not a designated bathing water — not routinely sampled.

No published samples for this site yet.

Weekly lab samples, not real-time. Avoid bathing for 48 h after heavy rain.

Sewage & storm overflows

3 NI Water storm overflows within 1.2 mi.

Measured in 20253 spills<1 h · 2 in the bathing season · 2 of 3 monitored
OverflowDistanceClassificationModelled spills/yrMeasured 2025
Ballyhornan South TPS
→ Ards Penninsula		 0.5 mi To be Determined — 2 spills
1 in season · <1 h
Ballyhornan North WwPS
→ Ards Penninsula		 0.7 mi To be Determined — —
Bishopscourt WwPS
→ Ballyarnet Burn		 1.0 mi To be Determined — 1 spill
1 in season · <1 h
How these are counted

“Modelled” is NI Water's hydraulic-model prediction of spills per year. “Measured” is from NI Water's event duration monitors, counted with the industry 12/24 method (discharges within the same 12- or 24-hour block count as one spill); the bathing-season figure (1 Jun–15 Sep) is our count from NI Water's published discharge log. An overflow with no monitor isn't known to be dry. Classification is NI Water's own.

Nearest wastewater treatment works: Ballyhornan Outfall WwTW (880 yd → Ards Penninsula) · Ardglass WwTW (1.8 mi → Dundrum Bay Outer).

Amenities & features

Information 2

Boating — nearest harbours & marinas

  • Ardglass Harbour · Unknown · Newry Mourne and Down 2.6 mi
  • Killough Harbour · Council · Newry Mourne and Down 4.0 mi
  • Strangford Harbour · Unknown · Newry Mourne and Down 5.7 mi
2 more further away
  • Portaferry Harbour · Unknown · Ards and North Down 6.0 mi
  • Dundrum Harbour · Unknown · Newry Mourne and Down 11.5 mi

Wildlife & designations

This beach lies in or within 0.6 mi of:

  • ASSI Sheepland Coast
  • pSPA East Coast Marine proposed Special Protection Area, not yet classified
    7 proposed features
    • Great crested grebe
    • Red throated diver
    • Sandwich tern
    • Common tern
    • Arctic tern
    • Manx shearwater
    • Eider duck
  • MCZ Strangford Lough

Protected features and their latest condition assessment, from DAERA's 2023 marine protected area review. Only sites with a marine part are assessed there.

Alerts & advisories

No advisories active for this beach today.