Markethill | |
---|---|
Location within Northern Ireland | |
Population | 1,647 (2011 Census)</small |
• Belfast | 40 miles |
District | |
County | |
Country | Northern Ireland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | ARMAGH |
Postcode district | BT60 |
Dialling code | 028, +44 28 |
UK Parliament | |
NI Assembly | |
Markethill is a village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is beside Gosford Forest Park. It had a population of 1,647 people in the 2011 Census. [1]
A livestock market is held here three times a week and each summer the world's largest Lambeg drumming contest takes place in the village.[ citation needed ] It is home to Kilcluney Volunteers Flute Band, who host the largest band parade in Europe on the first Friday of each June.[ citation needed ]
It is by the A28 road around 10 kilometres (6 mi) south-east of Armagh city, and 18 kilometres (11 mi) north-west of Newry.
The village sprang up within the townland of Coolmallish or Coolmillish (Irish : Cúil Mheallghuis), [2] on the road between Armagh and Newry. It began to grow during the Plantation of Ulster as a town for Scottish and English migrants.
During the Troubles, there were a number of incidents in Markethill, including a number which resulted in fatalities.[ vague ][ citation needed ]
Nearby Gosford Castle is within Gosford Forest Park. The Ministry of Agriculture bought the estate in 1958, establishing Gosford Forest Park. Gosford Castle is the largest Grade A listed building in Northern Ireland, in 2006 after public consultation the Boyd Partnership was selected to restore the castle and convert it into 24 self-contained luxury apartments. The first residents moved in December 2008, restoration is still in progress as of May 2010.
Markethill Courthouse, situated at the top of Main Street, at the north entrance to Markethill adjacent to Gosford Forest Park. Markethill Courthouse was built in 1842 to the designs of Thomas Duff, and is one of the few surviving large regional free standing Courthouses built in the middle century.[ citation needed ] The building is constructed of random Blackstone with Armagh limestone quoins and dressings. The building was last used as a courthouse in 1952, was purchased by Markethill District Enterprises Ltd in June 1997, after lying vacant for 25 years. The building was restored for use as a community centre.[ citation needed ]
Markethill Swifts F.C. play in the Mid-Ulster Football League.
The nearest GAA club is at Mullaghbrack.
Markethill railway station opened on 25 August 1864, closed for passenger traffic on 1 February 1933 and finally closed altogether on 2 May 1955. [7] Located on the Armagh to Goraghwood section of line run by the Great Northern Railway of Ireland.
Markethill is classified as a village by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 1,000 and 2,499 people). [8] On Census Day (27 March 2011) the usually resident population of Markethill Settlement was 1,647, accounting for 0.09% of the NI total. [1] Of these:
Schools in the area include Markethill Primary School and Markethill High School.
The first significant industrial capacity in the town was established in 1888 by DH Sinton who established a linen mill, close to the towns railway station. The mill was purchased by Spence, Bryson & Co. Ltd in 1909 and remained operational until 1991 when it was badly damaged by an IRA bomb. Production at this point moved to a sister factory in nearby Portadown.
Today the area is largely focused on agriculture and is centred on the large agricultural mart situated on the Cladymilltown Road on the outskirts of the town. Markethill Livestock Sales has been established for more than 45 years. [9] The previous Mart premises is currently lying empty as a derelict site.[ citation needed ]
A small business park has been constructed on a section of the former Spence, Bryson & Co. Ltd Linen Mill which contains a number of small business' and start-up enterprises. The business park is administered by Markethill Business Centre on Fairgreen Road. [10]
There are several independent business' located in the town. These include Alexander's of Markethill and Alexanders Furnishings Ltd., [11] established in 1954 and operating from the old Market House, Keady Street with the furniture shop on Fairgreen Road nearby. Dalzell's of Markethill, an electrical appliances company, was established in 1956 and is the largest independent electrical appliance retailer in Northern Ireland . [12]
J.D. Hunter & Co. is a supermarket located on the former linen mill site, and is part of the Nisa group. A restaurant, the Old Barn Steakhouse and Event Catering company, is also based nearby. [13]
County Armagh is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 1,327 km2 (512 sq mi) and has a population of 194,394 as of the 2021 census. County Armagh is known as the "Orchard County" because of its many apple orchards. The county is part of the historic province of Ulster.
The Irish People's Liberation Organisation was a small Irish socialist republican paramilitary organisation formed in 1986 by disaffected and expelled members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), whose factions coalesced in the aftermath of the supergrass trials. It developed a reputation for intra-republican and sectarian violence as well as criminality, before being forcibly disbanded by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1992.
This is a chronology of activities by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1970 to 1979.
Gosford Castle is a 19th-century country house situated in Gosford, a townland of Markethill, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It was built for Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, and designed in the Norman revival style by London architect Thomas Hopper. It is a Grade A listed building, and is said to be Ulster's largest. The Earls of Gosford occupied the castle until 1921, and the estate was later purchased by the Ministry of Agriculture to form Gosford Forest Park. The building subsequently deteriorated and in 2006 was sold to a development company who converted the castle into private dwellings.
Ulster Resistance (UR), or the Ulster Resistance Movement (URM), is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary movement established by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland in November 1986 in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Dessie O'Hare, also known as "The Border Fox", is an Irish republican paramilitary who was once the most wanted man in Ireland.
This article recounts the violence and other effects related to The Troubles in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Much of it has been related to the Drumcree parade dispute.
The Troubles in Keady refers to incidents taking place in Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
The Troubles in Armagh recounts incidents during The Troubles in Armagh City, County Armagh, Northern Ireland; the violence was substantial enough for a stretch of road on the outskirts of the city to be referred to by one RUC officer as "Murder Mile". Over the course of the Troubles, although mainly concentrated in the years from 1969 until 1994, the small city of around 15,000 people, including some outlying areas, saw 86 deaths, including those of a number of people from the city who lost their lives elsewhere in Troubles-related incidents.
The Protestant Action Force (PAF) was a front group used by Ulster loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland when claiming responsibility for a number of attacks during the Troubles. First used in 1974, attacks by individuals claiming to be members of the PAF killed at least 41 Catholic civilians. The PAF was most commonly used by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). All of the attacks claimed by the PAF in Armagh and Tyrone counties from 1974 to 1976 have been linked to the Glenanne gang, which was a group consisting of members of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade along with rogue Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. A six-year period of no attacks claimed by the PAF ended in 1982; during the 1980s, the PAF claimed 15 attacks in the Belfast area and two in County Armagh. UDR soldiers were convicted of two attacks in Armagh. The PAF claimed its last attacks in the early 1990s, all of which were in north Armagh and were alleged to involve members of the security forces.
Banbridge is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road and is named after a bridge built over the River Bann in 1712. It is situated in the civil parish of Seapatrick and the historic barony of Iveagh Upper, Upper Half. The town began as a coaching stop on the road from Belfast to Dublin and thrived from Irish linen manufacturing. The town was home to the headquarters of the former Banbridge District Council. Following a reform of local government in Northern Ireland in 2015, Banbridge became part of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. It had a population of 17,400 in the 2021 Census.
This is a timeline of actions by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group. Most of these actions took place as part of its 1975–1998 campaign during "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The INLA did not start claiming responsibility for its actions under the INLA name until January 1976 at which point they had already killed 12 people, before then they used the names People's Liberation Army (PLA) and People's Republican Army (PRA) to claim its attacks.
This is a chronology of activities by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1980 to 1989. For actions before and after this period see Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions.
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area of counties Armagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The gang consisted of soldiers from the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Twenty-five UDR soldiers and RUC police officers were named as purported members of the gang. Details about the group have come from many sources, including the affidavit of former member and RUC officer John Weir; statements by other former members; police, army and court documents; and ballistics evidence linking the same weapons to various attacks. Since 2003, the group's activities have also been investigated by the 2006 Cassel Report, and three reports commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, known as the Barron Reports. A book focusing on the group's activities, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, by Anne Cadwallader, was published in 2013. It drew on all the aforementioned sources, as well as Historical Enquiries Team investigations. The book was the basis for the 2019 documentary film Unquiet Graves, directed by Sean Murray.
Robert William McConnell, was an Ulster loyalist paramilitary who allegedly carried out or was an accomplice to a number of sectarian attacks and killings, although he never faced any charges or convictions. McConnell served part-time as a corporal in the 2nd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and was a suspected member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The 1991 Cappagh killings was a gun attack by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on 3 March 1991 in the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. A unit of the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade drove to the staunchly republican village and shot dead three Provisional IRA members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle's Bar.
The Darkley killings or Darkley massacre was a gun attack carried out on 20 November 1983 near the village of Darkley in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Three gunmen attacked worshippers attending a church service at Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church, killing three Protestant civilians and wounding seven. The attackers were members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) acting on their own. They claimed responsibility using the cover name "Catholic Reaction Force", saying it was retaliation for recent sectarian attacks on Catholics by the loyalist "Protestant Action Force". The attack was condemned by the INLA leadership.
This is a timeline of actions by the Official Irish Republican Army, an Irish republican & Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. Most of these actions took place as part of a Guerrilla campaign against the British Army & Royal Ulster Constabulary and internal Irish Republican feuds with the Provisional IRA & Irish National Liberation Army from the early 1970s - to the mid-1970s during the most violent phase of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
The following is a Timeline of British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) undercover operations during Operation Banner during the 1969 – 1998 Northern Irish conflict in Northern Ireland that resulted in death or injury. Including operations by the SAS, 14 Intelligence Company, the Military Reaction Force (MRF), RUC Special Patrol Group and Special Branch.
The Stag Inn attack was a sectarian gun attack, on 30 July 1976, carried out by a group of Belfast IRA Volunteers using the cover name Republican Action Force. Four Protestants, all civilians, the youngest being 48 years old and the eldest 70, were all killed in the attack with several others being injured. Three Catholics were killed the previous day in a Loyalish bomb, part of a string of sectarian attacks in Northern Ireland by different paramilitary organizations.
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