Cullaville or Culloville ( or McCulloch's ville or town is a small

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred t ...

and

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic ori ...

near

Crossmaglen Crossmaglen (, ) is a village and townland in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 1,610 in the 2011 Census and is the largest village in South Armagh. The village centre is the site of a large Police Service of Northern I ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, 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 and ha ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

. It is the southernmost settlement in the county and one of the southernmost in Northern Ireland, straddling the

Irish border Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 400 people. The village is on a busy crossroads on the main

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ga, Dún Dealgan ), meaning "the fort of Dealgan", is the county town (the administrative centre) of County Louth, Ireland. The town is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is h ...

to Castleblaney road (the A37 in Northern Ireland and N53 in the Republic); three of the roads lead across the border and the fourth leads to Crossmaglen.

History

Events

On 29 March 1922, during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi- ...

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief that ...

(IRA) volunteers ambushed and shot dead two

Royal Irish Constabulary The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ga, Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate ...

men (Patrick Earley and James Harper) at Ballinacarry Bridge, Cullaville. Cullaville, along with the rest of South Armagh, would have been transferred to the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the ...

had the recommendations of the

Irish Boundary Commission The Irish Boundary Commission () met in 1924–25 to decide on the precise delineation of Republic of Ireland – United Kingdom border, the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the Ir ...

been enacted in 1925. On 2 September 1942, during the Northern Campaign of the IRA, an attack was scheduled to take place against a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

barracks in

. Twenty IRA volunteers were led by Patrick Demody in a commandeered lorry and accompanying car. A passing

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Roya ...

(RUC) patrol, however, noticed the IRA convoy as it moved through Cullaville and in the ensuing gun battle, one IRA man was injured along with one RUC member. Conflicting accounts exist of the outcome, one claiming that the IRA unit surrendered and was released, all survivors being allowed to return to Dublin; another claiming that it was the RUC men (there were only two of them) who surrendered to the IRA and were released.

The Troubles

For more information see The Troubles in Cullaville, which includes a list of incidents in Cullaville during the Troubles resulting in two or more fatalities.

Sport

The village is home to Cullaville Blues Gaelic Athletic Club. Tracing its origins to a club founded in 1888, it is one of the oldest clubs in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

.Cullaville page
on Armagh GAA website

Transport

The former station,

Culloville railway station Culloville railway station was on the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway in the Republic of Ireland. The Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway Irish North Western Railway (INW) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. Development The c ...

and current post office are south of the River Fane, in County Monaghan. The station was located on the former Great Northern Railway's Irish North West line from

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from ga, Inis Ceithleann , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,823 a ...

, which opened in June 1858 but lost its passenger service in 1957, and closed completely in 1959. Only the station masters house, up platform and brick built signal cabin base remains at Culloville, the rest of the station buildings have since been demolished.

References

Sources

NI Neighbourhood Information System