Glenullin was previously a rural area but has now expanded to become a small village in a valley between the villages of
Garvagh
Garvagh ( or ''Garbhachadh'' meaning "rough field") is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is on the banks of the Agivey River, south of Coleraine on the A29 route. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 1,288. It is situ ...
,
Swatragh
Swatragh () is a small village and townland in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Swatragh is on the main A29 road north of Maghera, and is situated within Mid-Ulster District. The population was 438 in the 2011 Census.
The village has three ...
and
Dungiven, and lies in the borough of
Coleraine,
County Londonderry,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
. The nearest city is
Derry which is 27 miles away. 'The Glen', as it is often known, is not an officially recognised administrative division but there is a strong local identity and an active community sector. Although the area has few amenities, the local Primary school, St Patrick's & St Joseph's Federated
Primary School
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
, and St Joseph's
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
have particular prominence in the life of Glenullin.
Sport
Glenullin was one of the first areas in the county to organise
Gaelic games and the local club,
John Mitchel's GAC, based at Seán Ó Maoláin Park, has a number of football and camogie teams. They previously had hurling teams but were unable to manage them correctly and they fell apart.
People
*
Paddy Bradley, Gaelic football player. Played for
Derry from the 1990s until 2010.
*
Gabriel Bradley, Gaelic footballer, played for the county in the 1970s and 1980s.
*
Liam 'Baker' Bradley, manager of
Antrim GAA football team.
*
Eoin Bradley
Eoin Bradley (commonly known by his nickname Skinner; born 31 December 1983) is a Gaelic footballer and association footballer. He plays the former for the Glenullin club and, previously, for the Derry county team. With Glenullin he won a De ...
, Gaelic football player, a star of the county team from 2008 until an injury in 2011.
*
Dermot McNicholl
Dermot McNicholl (born 6 November 1965) is an Irish former Gaelic footballer who played for the Derry county team in the 1980s and 1990s. He was part of Derry's 1993 All-Ireland Championship winning side, also winning Ulster Senior Football C ...
, one of the leading Gaelic footballers in the county in the 1980s and 1990s, also played
Australian rules football and in the
International Rules Series
The International Rules Series is a senior men's international rules football competition between the Australia international rules football team (selected by the Australian Football League) and the Ireland international rules football team (se ...
.
*
Harry Mullan, boxing journalist (1946–99).
*
John Eddie Mullan (1923-2008), later a Derry player, briefly played football for Glenullin in the 1940s.
*
Gerard O'Kane, Gaelic football player, on county teams since 2002.
Ecology, History and Notable places
In the basin of the valley there is an
ombrotrophic
Ombrotrophic ("cloud-fed"), from Ancient Greek ὄμβρος (''ómvros'') meaning "rain" and τροφή (''trofí'') meaning "food"), refers to soils or vegetation which receive all of their water and nutrients from precipitation, rather than ...
raised bog
Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation (ombrot ...
which, having suffered severe ecological damage by commercial peat extraction in 1994, is now a protected site. Much of Glenullin bog that remains today would have been familiar to the different cultures that have populated the valley, including the pre-Christian Iron Age and the people of the Middle Ages who built forts, raths and ritual cairns on prominent locations on hillsides and drumlins. Over recent centuries, the inhabitants of the single-storey, thatched vernacular dwellings that dotted the valley sides harvested
turf
Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls.
In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...
from the bog, revealing the stumps of the oaks that once filled the valley.
In 1922 an IRA volunteer was buried in the bog. The burial was done at night with a full colour party which indicates it was a respected volunteer. There are no details of his name or burial location but the story has been passed down through generations of the MacNiocaill family (Phaidi Hamish).
The original football pitch in Glenullin was Tinkers Park in Coolcoscreghan townland, on the junction of the Lisnascreghog and Glen roads. This field is now livestock grazing. The original GAC meeting hall is a green metal building with a red roof on the Glenullin Road at the junction with Lisnascreghog Road. The current football pitch beside the council sink estate in Curraghmore was opened in 1973. A new GAC training ground was opened in 2014 in a field beside the Brockagh River, opposite the current pitch.
In older times, the
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH; ) is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be male, Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in N ...
played prominence in life in Glenullin. Their old meeting hall can be found in the area known as The Cutting near Brockagh Houses on the Glen Road.
There is an old church in Glenullin which can be found on Temple Road, at the Junction with Hillside Road. Although the building is now ruins, the surrounding area was tidied up to allow people to enter the old church grounds and pray.
On the junction of Churchtown Road and Ballyrogan Road, Errigal Old Church can be found. This was founded by St Adamnan in the 7th Century. The site now consists of the ruined remains of a medieval church in the centre of a walled graveyard, a rock-souterrain and a ballaun stone. The unusual Gortnamoyagh Inauguration Stone, featuring two carved footprints and a staff mark, was used until the 16th Century during local Gaelic Chieftain Inauguration ceremonies.
Parish
Glenullin is in the civil parish of
Errigal
Errigal () is a mountain near Gweedore in County Donegal, Ireland. It is the tallest peak of the Derryveagh Mountains and the tallest peak in County Donegal. Errigal is also the most southern and the highest of the mountain chain called the ...
and in the Catholic parish of
Garvagh
Garvagh ( or ''Garbhachadh'' meaning "rough field") is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is on the banks of the Agivey River, south of Coleraine on the A29 route. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 1,288. It is situ ...
in the (
Diocese of Derry). Glenullin covers about half the total parish area, the remaining being in the village of Garvagh and the neighbouring hamlet of
Ballerin.
Diocese of Derry
website Retrieved 2011-08-05
References
{{authority control
Villages in County Londonderry