Between 1967 and April 1968 a team of Belgian divers (including Robert Sténuit, the world's first aquanaut), located the remains of the wreck of the Girona off the coast of Portballintrae and brought up the greatest find of Spanish Armada treasure salvaged up until that time.[3][4] The recovered artefacts are now on display in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
In 2007, Portballintrae was proposed as a location for a golf course development by American real-estate developer Donald Trump.[5]
Demographics
Portballintrae is classified as a small village or hamlet by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 500 and 1,000 people). On census day 2001 (29 April 2001), there were 734 people living in Portballintrae.[citation needed] Of these:
12.0% were aged under 16 years and 33.4% were aged 60 and over
48.9% of the population were male and 51.1% were female
1.0% were from a Catholic background and 96.5% were from a Protestant background.