Armagh Heritage Trails

Two cathedrals named for the same saint on facing hills, a Georgian courthouse and gaol, a Boer War memorial on the Mall, and one of Ireland’s oldest public libraries — 16 stops through the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland.

Walk the granite squares of Ireland's first Quaker model village — a mill town built with no pub, no pawnshop and, famously, no need for police.

A short loop around a border village that has been a fought-over river crossing since 1575: from the Tudor fort and its vanished plantation village, past two early Christian raths that gave the townland of Lisbofin its name, to the derelict Ulster Canal lock and the mixed Methodist and Catholic village that grew up around them.

From a ruined 18th-century parish church to a Main Street pub built over a vanished flax mill, this short loop traces Camlough's story beside its crooked lake in the Ring of Gullion.

A short walk around the fort, church, canal lock and old borough streets of Charlemont — the real County Armagh village at the Moy river crossing, on the east bank of the Blackwater.

A short loop around Cardinal Ó Fiaich Square — reputedly Ireland's largest market square — taking in its 1811 market house, its shopfront terraces, and the parish church raised by volunteers after Catholic Emancipation.

Walk Forkhill's Main Street past its old inns, vanished court house and river bridge, then up Church Road to the 1767 church and charity school built by the estate's founder, Richard Jackson, beneath the slopes of Slieve Gullion.

Follow the story of a Plantation bawn from its 1619 walls to the barracks Jonathan Swift wrote a poem about — then trace the ordinary village street, ringfort and armorial stone that grew up around it.

A short walk through the historic core of a border village founded in 1706 — a former barracks house, a granite Victorian church, an old coaching inn, a milestone, a parochial house and a village school, all within a few minutes' walk of each other.

A short loop through the mill town of Keady, from the memorial to the linen baron who built it to the Victorian churches, bank and viaduct that still ring its central streets.

A short loop around a west-Armagh hilltop village — from the 1832 parish church and a derelict Main Street fountain to a Victorian estate's gate lodge and a recorded, unconfirmed early enclosure.

Walk the Main Street of the village where the Orange Order was founded in 1795 — from a Plantation-era bawn and a hilltop Georgian church to a 1746 court house and the gateway of the Cope family's orchard-country manor.

From the Brownlow family's Elizabethan-revival mansion to the Carnegie library their descendants helped bring to town, this short loop through Lurgan's Georgian and Victorian core takes in a parish church, a war memorial, a mechanics' institute and a working Presbyterian meeting house — all still standing where they were built.

Walk the short Main Street of a Plantation-founded market town -- courthouse, three church congregations and the walled edge of the Acheson family's Gosford demesne -- with an optional extension through Gosford Forest Park to Dean Swift's Well and Ulster's largest Grade A listed building, Gosford Castle.

A short border-village walk taking in a Georgian market house, three separate 19th-century churches, a Victorian convent, and a lock-keeper's house on the old Ulster Canal, all confirmed to stand on the Northern Ireland side of Middletown's border with Co. Monaghan.

Walk the streets of a Victorian linen 'model village' built almost entirely by one family — from the mill workers' terraces and village hall on Hill Street down to the derelict mansion where the inventor of football's penalty kick grew up.

From a 1795 barracks that saw yeomanry cavalry in the 1798 Rising, to a Victorian chapel and a cultural centre keeping South Armagh's songs and names alive, this walk traces Mullaghbawn's layered story at the foot of Slieve Gullion.

Walk the drawing-board streets of an 18th-century planted market town, from its founding square to a Georgian terrace, a 1775 parish church, and a schoolyard pump that has stood since Edwardian times.

Walk the Victorian and Edwardian heart of Portadown — town hall, Carnegie library, banking hall, statue and churches — from Edward Street down to the historic Bann Bridge crossing that first gave the town its name.

A short walk around a village built on a 16th-century military crossing point, taking in a preserved Victorian signal box on the Belfast-Dublin line, a Georgian parish church with its 1819 sundial, and the stone stump of a windmill that once ground corn for the surrounding townlands.

A short loop around Richhill's Plantation-era village square -- the Grade A Castle that gave the village its name, a market house turned parish church, and three separate 18th/19th-century Nonconformist meeting houses -- all within a few minutes' walk of one another.

From the gates of the O'Hanlon stronghold turned Tayto crisp castle, up past a fortified parish church, to the two 19th-century churches and shopfronts of Market Street — Tandragee's whole story in a five-minute walk.