County Armagh Guide (Ard Mhacha)
“The Orchard County” - in the province of Ulster. County town: Armagh.
Ireland’s ecclesiastical capital, surrounded by apple orchards.
Armagh is the spiritual capital of Ireland - St Patrick made it his ecclesiastical centre, and it has two cathedrals to his name. The “Orchard County” is famous for its apple blossom, while nearby Navan Fort (Eamhain Mhacha) was the legendary seat of the kings of Ulster. A small county with an outsized place in Irish history.
Ireland's ecclesiastical capital for over 1,500 years, Armagh takes its name from Ard Mhacha, the height of Macha, the goddess-queen of Ulster legend. St Patrick chose the hill here for his principal church around 445 AD, and today two St Patrick's Cathedrals - Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic - face each other across the small Georgian city, each the seat of an all-Ireland primate. Two miles west stands Navan Fort, Emain Macha, the ancient capital of the Kings of Ulster and setting of the Táin sagas, making this compact county a place of extraordinary depth for anyone tracing the deep roots of Irish identity.
Beyond the city, Armagh is the Orchard County: apple growing was recorded here well over a millennium ago, and the pink-and-white blossom of May around Loughgall and Richhill remains a glorious sight, with the Armagh Bramley apple now protected under EU designation. Linen once powered towns like Lurgan, Portadown and the Quaker model village of Bessbrook, while today the county is renowned for Gaelic football - Crossmaglen Rangers are among the most decorated clubs in Ireland - and for road bowls, the ancient sport of hurling an iron bullet along country lanes, kept alive here and in Cork. Visitors of every tradition find a shared heritage in its cathedrals, orchards and observatory.
Cities, towns and villages in Armagh
- Armagh - The county town and ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, a Georgian gem with two St Patrick's Cathedrals, a 1790 observatory and a planetarium.
- Lurgan - A former linen powerhouse laid out with one of the widest main streets in Ireland, beside Lurgan Park, one of the largest urban parks in these islands.
- Portadown - A major market and railway town on the River Bann, once known as the hub of the North for its rail junction.
- Craigavon - A planned new town begun in 1965 between Lurgan and Portadown, named after Northern Ireland's first prime minister.
- Crossmaglen - A south Armagh village with one of Ireland's largest market squares and a Gaelic football club, Crossmaglen Rangers, of legendary success.
- Bessbrook - A Quaker model linen village founded in 1845, built famously without a public house and said to have inspired Bournville.
- Keady - A hillside mill town near the Monaghan border, birthplace of singer Tommy Makem and a heartland of traditional music.
- Tandragee - A castle town whose 19th-century castle now houses the Tayto crisp factory, one of Northern Ireland's best-loved brands.
- Loughgall - A pretty estate village at the centre of the county's apple orchards and the place where the Orange Order was founded in 1795.
Famous people from Armagh
- St Patrick - Ireland's patron saint established his principal church at Armagh around 445 AD, fixing the city's primacy in the Irish church ever since.
- Brian Boru - The High King of Ireland, killed at Clontarf in 1014, is buried in the grounds of St Patrick's Church of Ireland Cathedral in Armagh.
- Tommy Makem - The world-famous folk singer and banjo player, partner of the Clancy Brothers, born in Keady in 1932.
- George William Russell (AE) - Poet, painter, mystic and agricultural reformer of the Irish Literary Revival, born in Lurgan in 1867.
- Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich - Archbishop of Armagh and noted historian of the Irish colleges in Europe, born near Crossmaglen in 1923.
- Colin Morgan - The star of the BBC's Merlin and Humans, born and raised in Armagh city.
- Charles Wood - One of the great composers of Anglican church music and teacher of Vaughan Williams, born in Armagh in 1866.
- Patrick Magee - The distinctive stage and screen actor, a favourite of Samuel Beckett and star of A Clockwork Orange, born in Armagh in 1922.
- Oisin McConville - One of Gaelic football's greatest forwards, who won an All-Ireland with Armagh in 2002 and a hatful of club titles with Crossmaglen Rangers.
Did you know?
- Armagh is the ecclesiastical capital of all Ireland: both the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland seat their all-island primates in the city.
- Navan Fort, or Emain Macha, was the royal capital of ancient Ulster and features in the epic tales of Cú Chulainn and the Red Branch Knights.
- Armagh Observatory, founded in 1790, holds one of the longest continuous series of daily weather records anywhere in the world, unbroken since 1795.
- The Armagh Bramley apple holds EU Protected Geographical Indication status, and apple growing in the county was recorded more than a thousand years ago.
- Armagh is the smallest of the six counties of Northern Ireland by area.
- Road bowls, in which players hurl a 28-ounce iron bullet along winding country roads in as few throws as possible, survives almost exclusively in Armagh and Cork.
- The Bessbrook and Newry Tramway, opened in 1885, was one of the first hydroelectric-powered railways in the world.
- Ireland's oldest public library outside Dublin, the Armagh Robinson Library of 1771, holds Jonathan Swift's own annotated copy of Gulliver's Travels.
Surnames from Armagh: Murphy · Garvey · O'Hanlon · Larkin · Doran · Traynor · Haughey · Loughran · McCann · McNally · O'Hare · Rogan