Maghera

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Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox UK place

Galwilly Bridge Over The Milltown Burn Located Outside Maghera in Glen Housing Estate.
File:Tirnony Dolmen - geograph.org.uk - 587263.jpg
Tirnony Dolmen

Maghera (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; Template:Irish derived place name) is a small town at the foot of the Glenshane Pass in Northern Ireland. Its population was 4,235 in the 2021 census.<ref name="2021pop"/> Formerly in the barony of Loughinsholin within the historic County Londonderry, it is today in the local-government district of Mid-Ulster.

History

One mile north of the town is a single-chamber megalithic tomb known as Tirnony dolmen. The portals surrounding the tomb are five feet tall.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The town dates back at least to the 6th century to the church founded by Saint Lurach. Standing upon the site of the church, the present day ruins of St. Lurach's Church date back to the 10th century (see Maghera Old Church). They include, over a doorway, a relief of the crucifixion, possibly the oldest in Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The crucifixion lintel is reproduced in the contemporary Catholic church, St Mary's.

The old church and town were burned in the 12th century. Afterwards, Maghera became the seat of the Bishop of Derry with a cathedral church.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1246 its bishop, Germanus O'Carolan (Gilla in Choimded Ó Cerbailláin), pleading the remoteness of Maghera, obtained sanction from Pope Innocent IV to have the see transferred to Derry.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

As a result of the Plantation of Ulster and of the Rebellion of 1641 which drove out many of the first English families, Maghera and district attracted Scottish settlers. They came into conflict not only with the dispossessed Irish, but as tenants and as Presbyterians also with the land-owning, Church of Ireland, Ascendancy. A result was large-scale emigration to the American colonies (Charles Thomson, recording himself as from Maghera, signed the Declaration of Independence)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and, in the 1790s, the organising of the United Irishmen.

Despairing of reform, and determined to make common cause with their Catholic neighbours, on 7 June 1798 the United Irishmen mustered upwards of 5,000 men in Maghera. But the poorly armed host broke up the following morning on news of the rebel defeat at Antrim and the approach of government troops. A Presbyterian church elder, Watty Graham, was executed for his part, and his head was paraded through the town. His minister, John Glendy, was forced into American exile.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Courtney2">Template:Cite book</ref>

On 12 July 1830, Orange Order and Ribbonmen clashed over demonstrations the Orange Order held in Maghera and Castledawson. Several Catholic homes were burnt by Protestants in the aftermath.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some repair of sectarian relations was achieved by an active tenant right movement, but with tenant purchase of land facilitated by the Land Acts by the end of the century the national question prevailed. Politically the town has remained split between nationalists, now in the majority, and unionists.

The Great Famine of the 1840s and the years that followed, resulted in a since unrecovered loss of population in the surrounding rural districts. In 2003 the Ancient Order of Hibernians erected a headstone to make the "Famine Plot" were local victims were buried.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the early 20th century, the town itself was relatively prosperous. With its own railway station, an embroidery factory, a busy weekly market and close proximity to Clark's linen mill in Upperlands, it was one of two major towns within Magherafelt Rural District. The town also benefited from post-war advances in education, housing and transport. Separate primary and secondary schools were built for Catholics and Protestants in the 1960s; new housing estates were constructed and motor cars forced a widening of many of the town's narrow streets<ref>Bryson, A. (2007). 'Whatever You Say, Say Nothing': Researching Memory & Identity in Mid-Ulster 1945–1969'. Oral History, 35(2), (45–56), 46.</ref>

Template:Main Maghera suffered violence during the Troubles. Over the three decades from the end of the 1960s a total of 14 people were killed in or near the village Maghera, half of them members of the security forces and a further two as a result of family membership of the Ulster Defence Regiment. The Provisional Irish Republican Army were responsible for ten of the deaths. Two, including a Sinn Féin councillor, were killed by loyalist paramilitaries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

From what was possibly a low of 879 in 1910<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Maghera population has risen in the course of a century to a census figure in 2011 of 4,220. Reflecting European Union employment in local food processing, 213 residents in 2011 did not have English as a first language.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Governance

The village was administered by Londonderry County Council from 1899 until the abolition of county councils in Northern Ireland in 1973.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since 2011, the town is part of the Mid-Ulster District Council. It is located within the Carntogher district electoral area (DLE) which contains the areas Lower Glenshane, Swatragh, Tamlaght O'Crilly, Valley and Maghera.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> In the 2015 district elections, Carntogher DLE elected three Sinn Féin, one SDLP and one DUP representatives to the council.

Churches

  • Old St Lurach's Church, a church dating to the 10th century which has one of the oldest depictions of the crucifixion in Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • St Lurach's Church, which is the site of the local Church of Ireland congregation.
  • St Mary's Catholic Church one of two catholic churches in the town.
  • Maghera Presbyterian Church, which is a reformed church. The current building dates from at least 1843
  • St Patrick's Church, Glen. The older Catholic Church on the outskirts of the town.
  • Maghera Elim Church
File:Maghera RC Church - geograph.org.uk - 877406.jpg
St. Mary's RC Church, Maghera
File:Maghera Church of Ireland - geograph.org.uk - 561774.jpg
Maghera Church of Ireland

Demographics

2021 Census

On Census Day (21 March 2021) the usually resident population of Maghera (Mid Ulster Lgd) Settlement was 4,235.<ref name="2021pop">Template:Cite web</ref> Of these:

  • 22.57% were aged under 16, 61.94% were aged between 16 and 65, and 15.49% were aged 66 and over.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 51.17% of the usually resident population were female, and 48.83% were male.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 78.04% belong to or were brought up in the Catholic religion, 18.14% belong to or were brought up in a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' religion, 0.16% belong to or were brought up in an 'other' religion, and 3.66% did not belong to or weren't brought up with any religion.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 19.24% indicated that they had a British national identity,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 55.84% had an Irish national identity<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 24.16% had a Northern Irish national identity.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Respondents could select more than one nationality.
  • 24.27% had some knowledge of Irish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 6.49% had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

2011 Census

On Census Day (27 March 2011) the usually resident population of Maghera (Magherafelt Lgd) Settlement was 4,220 accounting for 0.23% of the NI total.<ref name="2011 Census">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Census2011>Template:Cite web</ref> increasing from 3,711 in the 2001 Census.<ref name=Census2001>Template:Cite web</ref>

  • 99.55% were from the white (including Irish Traveller) ethnic group.
  • 74.86% belong to or were brought up in the Catholic religion and 22.61% belong to or were brought up in a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' religion.
  • 22.56% indicated that they had a British national identity, 48.82% had an Irish national identity and 27.44% had a Northern Irish national identity.
  • 21.23% had some knowledge of Irish
  • 6.46% had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots
  • 5.06% did not have English as their first language.

Transport

The Northern Counties Committee's Derry Central Railway had a station in Maghera. Maghera railway station opened on 18 December 1880, shut for passenger traffic on 28 August 1950 and shut altogether on 1 October 1959 when the Ulster Transport Authority closed the Derry Central.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The station building is now part of the Mid Ulster Garden Centre.

File:Maghera Goods Shed, Downpatrick - geograph.org.uk - 350046.jpg
Maghera Goods Shed, now at Downpatrick railway station on the Downpatrick and County Down Railway.

Ulsterbus runs routes through Maghera, which includes the 116/a/b/d to Kilrea, Coleraine and Magherafelt, 212 from Belfast to Derry, 246 to Limavady and Eglinton and 278 from Monaghan to Portrush.

Notable people

1700s

1800s

1900s

Schools

There are three primary schools and one secondary school in Maghera.

Primary schools

  • St Mary's Primary School, Glenview
  • Maghera Controlled Primary School
  • St Patrick's Primary School, Glen

Secondary school

Sport

References

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