|
| |
|
DUNGANNON |
| |
|
|
| |
DUNGANNON , about ten miles south of Cookstown, is a dreary town
with no trace of its illustrious past as the hilltop seat of the
O'Neills, from which they ruled Ulster for over five centuries. Outside
town, on the A45 Coalisland Road, is the Tyrone Crystal factory (tours
Mon-Fri 9.30am, 11am, noon, 2pm & 3pm; £2) where you can see
demonstrations of glass-blowing and hand-cutting. There's excellent B&B
and home cooking in the Georgian Grange Lodge , 7 Grange Rd (tel
028/8778 4212; £55-70) and surprisingly good lakeside camping in
Dungannon Park on Moy Rd (tel 028/8772 7327). At DONAGHMORE , three
miles northwest, there's another high cross dating from the tenth
century in front of the parish church, though whoever reassembled it in
the nineteenth century clearly botched the job as there's an obvious
join halfway down the shaft.
Between Dungannon and Armagh, the picturesque village of BENBURB merits
a detour. The tiny cottages in Main Street were once apple-peeling sheds
and the parish church, dating from 1618, is one of the oldest still in
regular use in Ireland. This stands next to the gates of a Servite
Priory - the monastic order of Servants of the Virgin, founded in
Florence in 1233, but which did not establish itself in Ireland until
1948. The priory grounds offer a pleasant stroll, but far better are the
walks along the Blackwater River in Benburb Valley Park (daily 10am-dusk),
where, perched on a rock a hundred feet or so above the water are the
substantial remains of a castle built by Viscount Powerscourt in 1615.
A mile south of Benburb village in the canalside hamlet of MILLTOWN is
the Benburb Valley Heritage Centre (Easter-Sept daily 9am-6pm, £2),
housed in a nineteenth-century weaving factory and containing a range of
old linen-making machinery and a model of the 1646 Battle of Benburb, at
which a Scottish army suffered catastrophic losses in an encounter with
Owen Roe O'Neill. There's a tea shop and a hostel here too (April-Sept;
tel 028/3754 9752).
|
| |
|
