Tandragee ()Place Names NI
/ref> is a village in

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 an ...

, Northern Ireland. It is built on a hillside overlooking the Cusher River, in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Ballymore and the historic

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

of Orior Lower. It had a population of 3,486 people in the 2011 Census. This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th
Open Government Licence v3.0
Crown copyright.

History

Overlooking the village is

Tandragee Castle Tandragee Castle, Tandragee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, was built in 1837 by The 6th Duke of Manchester as the family's Irish home. The Duke of Manchester acquired the estate through his marriage to Millicent Sparrow (1798–1848). Histo ...

. Originally the seat of the

Chief of the Name The Chief of the Name, or in older English usage Captain of his Nation, is the recognised head of a family or clan (''fine'' in Irish and Scottish Gaelic). The term has sometimes been used as a title in Ireland and Scotland. In Ireland In Eliz ...

of the

O'Hanlon O'Hanlon is an Irish surname associated with the Ó hAnluain sept. As with other similar names, the added prefix "O'" means "son of" (Hanlon). Notable people with that surname include: * Ardal O'Hanlon (born 1965), Irish comedian * Evan O'Hanlon ...

Irish clan Irish clans are traditional kinship groups sharing a common surname and heritage and existing in a lineage-based society, originating prior to the 17th century. A clan (or ''fine'' in Irish) included the chief and his patrilineal relatives; howe ...

and

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...

of Orior, the Castle and surrounding countryside were confiscated and granted to Oliver St John and his heirs during the

Tudor conquest of Ireland The Tudor conquest (or reconquest) of Ireland took place under the Tudor dynasty, which held the Kingdom of England during the 16th century. Following a failed rebellion against the crown by Silken Thomas, the Earl of Kildare, in the 1530s, ...

and the

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation ('' plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of th ...

. According to D. J. O'Donoghue's account of his 1825 Irish tour,

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

was fascinated by the life and career of

Redmond O'Hanlon Redmond O'Hanlon, FRGS, FRSL (born 5 June 1947) is an English writer and scholar. Life O'Hanlon was born in 1947 in Dorset, England. He was educated at Marlborough College and then Oxford University. After taking his M.Phil. in nineteenth-c ...

, a local

Rapparee Rapparees or raparees (from the Irish ''ropairí'', plural of ''ropaire'', whose primary meaning is "thruster, stabber," and by extension a wielder of the half-pike or pike), were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Jacobite side du ...

leader. Hoping to make him the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

of an

adventure novel Adventure fiction is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the literary definition of romance fiction. History In the Introduction to the ''Encycloped ...

, Scott corresponded with

Lady Olivia Sparrow Lady Olivia Sparrow (née Acheson) (1776–1863) was an Anglo-Irish landowner and philanthropist, widowed in 1805. She was a prominent evangelical, belonging to 29 societies engaged in related causes, and a friend of both Hannah More and William ...

, an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

landowner whose estates included Tandragee. Although Scott asked Lady Olivia to obtain as much information as possible about O'Hanlon, he was forced to give up on the project after finding documentation too scanty. Tandragee Castle was rebuilt in about 1837 for The 6th Duke of Manchester. Today, its grounds are home to the Tayto potato-crisp factory. Northern Ireland Electricity has an interconnector to

County Louth County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of County Meath, M ...

in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. ...

from the outskirts of the town. Earlier spellings of the name include ''Tanderagee'' and ''Tonregee''. In 2000, Tandragee was scene of the Murders of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, two teenaged local Protestant men who were unaffiliated with an paramilitary organization, as part of an ongoing

Loyalist feud A loyalist feud refers to any of the sporadic feuds which have erupted almost routinely between Northern Ireland's various loyalist paramilitary groups during and after the ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles broke out in 1969. Th ...

Education

*Tandragee Primary School *Tandragee Junior High School *Tandragee Nursery *Button Moon Play Group

Sport

Tandragee Rovers play in the

Mid-Ulster Football League The Daily Mirror Mid-Ulster Football League, or simply referred to as the Mid-Ulster League, is an association football league in Northern Ireland. It contains 9 divisions. These comprise two intermediate sections: the Intermediate A and Intermed ...

. There is a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". ...

within the grounds of Tandragee Castle, within walking distance of the main street. It is 5,589 metres, par 71, and a hilly parkland course. Tandragee is also home to the Tandragee 100, a motorcycle road racing event held each year on country roads near the town.

Industry

Thomas Sinton Thomas Sinton, JP (February 1826 – 20 August 1887) was an Irish industrialist and magistrate. Sinton made a significant impact upon the Irish linen trade; not least establishing the village of Laurelvale, County Armagh. Thomas Sinton was born ...

opened a mill in town in the 1880s, an expansion of his firm from its original premises at nearby

Laurelvale Laurelvale is a village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is beside the smaller village of Mullavilly and the two are sometimes referred to as Laurelvale-Mullavilly or Mullavilly-Laurelvale. The village is three miles south of Portadown and 1 ...

– a

model village A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...

which he built. Sintons' mill, at the banks of the River Cusher, remained in production until the 1990s. The potato-crisp company Tayto has a factory and offices beside Tandragee Castle. It offers guided tours.

Transport

Tanderagee railway station opened on 6 January 1852 and was shut on 4 January 1965. There is an airstrip for landing and taking off of small aircraft near the old porridge factory.

Demography

2011 Census

Tandragee had a population of 3,486 people (1,382 households) in the 2011 Census. Of these: * 23.26% were under 16 years old and 12.62% were aged 65 and above; * 50.06% of the population were male and 49.94% were female; and * 81.84% were from a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

background and 11.70% were from a Roman

Catholic 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 ...

background

2001 Census

Tandragee is classified as an intermediate settlement by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 2,050 and 4,500 people). On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 3,050 people living in Tandragee. Of these: *24.9% were aged under 16 years and 14.3% were aged 60 and over *48.0% of the population were male and 50.0% were female *86.9% were from a

background and 10.5% were from a Roman

background *2.0% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed. For more details see
NI Neighbourhood Information Service

References

{{Authority control Villages in County Armagh Civil parish of Ballymore, County Armagh