Armagh (district)

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Armagh, conventionally regarded as the most important Patrician (see patrick) site and thereafter as the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. A large monastic complex had certainly evolved by the 8th century, and this is known to have developed secular urban trappings—craftsmen's quarters and streets—by the 11th century at the latest. But with modern archaeological confirmation of the antiquity of the Christian site (probably a pre‐Christian hillfort converted to ecclesiastical functions in the 5th or 6th century), and given the successful consolidation of its power and status over several centuries as the premier ecclesiastical centre (helped along by its own Patrician propaganda), it is quite possible that social and commercial functions were in evidence at Armagh before 1000. Little beyond a few treasures from its workshops survive (notably the Book of Armagh) and St Patrick's bell shrine (c.1100), and much remains to be understood of Armagh's early morphology.

Armagh's premier status in the new diocesan arrangements created as part of the 12th‐century reform was disputed by Dublin until the 17th century (see primatial controversy), and it failed to develop (compared for example with Downpatrick) in the Anglo‐Norman period. The cathedral was substantially enlarged in the mid‐13th century, but lying outside effective English influence the town failed to develop further. Its mainly non‐Gaelic medieval archbishops never resided.

Late 16th‐ and early 17th‐century sources emphasized, perhaps exaggerated, Armagh's devastated state. As churchland property it lay outside the Ulster plantation but several Church of Ireland archbishops attempted to revive its fortunes at a time when much of the town's hinterland to the north was undergoing intensive colonization and economic transformation. It seems new streets to the east of the cathedral were planned in the 1620s, but no dramatic change occurred until the long archiepiscopate of Richard Robinson (1765–94). The town's layout continued to reflect its origins—a street pattern which radiated outwards from the cathedral on the hill.

Robinson's programme, directing and encouraging civic and ecclesiastical reconstruction, acted as a catalyst for Armagh's emergence as a distinctive urban society. The fine classical architecture, institutional and domestic, reflects both the strength of this process and the skills of the two architects locally patronized, William Cooley and the Armagh‐born Francis Johnston. From fewer than 2,000 inhabitants in 1770 the town peaked at over 10,000 inhabitants in the 1840s. Thereafter it entered a gentle decline and, as the neighbouring towns to the north became mainly industrial, Armagh remained as educational, cultural, and service centre for much of south Ulster.

The town was never a predominantly Anglican enclave; the three main denominations were well represented with Catholics always the strongest numerically. The relative invisibility of Catholic Armagh was transformed with the construction of a twin‐spired cathedral between 1840 and 1873, the scale and height of which more than rivalled the old cathedral (which itself had recently been reconstructed). The sharpness of Armagh's communal divisions in more recent times has been intensified by the contrasting religious make‐up of its hinterland to the north and the south.

Bibliography

Clarkson, Leslie , ‘Armagh 1770: Portrait of an Urban Community’, in David Harkness and Mary O'Dowd (eds.), The Town in Ireland (1981)

David Dickson

Armagh [Ir. Ard Macha, height of Macha]. City and district in Northern Ireland, home of the (papal) primate of Ireland, who bears the title Comharba Phádraig [successor of Patrick], the claimed antiquity of which has recently been challenged; it is also the residence of the head of the Church of Ireland. Although the site has been Christian in all of recorded history, its name in Irish, ‘Height of Macha’, acknowledges a pre-Christian past. According to the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions], Ard Macha was named for Macha (1), wife of the mythical invader Nemed. It is on high ground, 2 miles E of Emain Macha [Ir. fortress of Macha], an important settlement in early Ireland, widely celebrated in Irish heroic literature. The excavations for St Patrick's (Protestant) Cathedral in 1840 uncovered many early carvings, especially figures of bears.

In pre-conquest Ireland Armagh was the site of a centre of learning, sometimes described as a university, established by Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair [Rory O'Connor]. Following the Synod of Clane (1162), no one who was not an alumnus of Armagh could be fer léiginn [Ir., master of studies] in any Irish monastic school. The advent of the Anglo-Normans in 1169, and their plundering of the school in 1184, 1185, and 1189, ended the tradition of learning at Armagh. The former (until 1974) county of Armagh, just south of Lough Neagh, was the smallest of the six in Northern Ireland. Within its borders are several sites often mentioned in Irish narrative, including Sliab Cuillinn [Slieve Gullion], a hill 5 miles SW of Newry, and Sliab Fúait [Slieve Fuad], sometimes thought to be the residence of Lir, near Newtown Abbott. See also Book of Armagh [Liber Ardmachanus]. Richard Sharpe, ‘St. Patrick and the See of Armagh’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 4 (Winter 1982), 33–59; cf. B. K. Lambkin, ‘Patrick, Armagh, and Emain Macha’, Emania (Belfast), 2 (1987), 29–31.

Armagh was the smallest of the six counties of Northern Ireland. It borders the Irish Republic to the south, Co. Down to the east, Tyrone and Lough Neagh to the north and north-west. The chief town is Armagh which has been an archbishopric since the 12th cent.: there is also a Roman catholic archbishopric. Portadown and Lurgan in the north are of local importance. The northern parts of the county grow fruit and there is farming and light industry. The catholic population is strong in the south and in 1921 Armagh council protested against the creation of Northern Ireland and was dissolved. Armagh forms a parliamentary constituency with Newry and in 2005 was taken by Sinn Fein with a comfortable majority.

J. A. Cannon

Armagh City and county in se Northern Ireland, between Lough Neagh and the border with the Republic. Armagh became an ecclesiastical centre in the 5th century (founded, in legend, by St Patrick) and is now the seat of Roman Catholic and Protestant archbishops. It was settled by Protestants in the 16th century. The county is low-lying in the n and hilly in the s. Much of the land is used for farming and the town acts as a market for agricultural produce. Lurgan and Portadown are centres for textiles and various light industries. Area: 676sq km (261sq mi). Pop. (county, 1991) 67,128; (town, 1991) 14,625.

Armagh, Canada, UK 1. Canada (Quebec): named after the Irish town.2. UK (Northern Ireland): locally Ard Mhacha. One of the original six counties of Ulster and a city meaning ‘Height of Macha’ from ard ‘height’ and Macha, the district name, from macha ‘pasture’. Macha, who is said to have come to the throne in 377 bc, is also a land goddess in the myths of the ancient Ulstermen. The name referred to the fortress around which the city developed. The city was the seat of the kings of Ulster between c.400 bc and ad 333.

Armagh , district (1991 pop. 49,050), 258 sq mi (668 sq km), S Northern Ireland. Armagh rises from boggy, fertile lowlands in the north to barren hills in the south. It is the fruit-growing center of Northern Ireland; cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry are also raised. Armagh was noted for its fine linen, which has diversified into synthetic fibers. The area was the center of much sectarian fighting in the 1970s through the 1990s.

Armagh (Ard Mhacha) Armagh. Ard Macha 444. ‘Macha's height’ or ‘height of the plain’.

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