Home > Local history > Ireland > Kilrea (town & parish), county Londonderry

“Kilrea, a market and post-town, and a parish, partly in the barony of Coleraine, but chiefly in that of Loughinsholin, county of Londonderry, and province of Ulster, 28 miles (S.E.) from Londonderry, and 110 (N.) of Dublin, on the roads leading respectively from Coleraine to Portglenone and Castle Dawson, and from Garvagh to Ballymoney; containing 4,262 inhabitants, of which number, 973 are in the town.
— Extract from A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, by Samuel Lewis, 1837.
Kilrea, from the Irish: Cill Ria, trans. (uncertain), church of the journey or way.
These local history notes for the town and parish of Kilrea run through the end of 1852, which year corresponds with the end of the Great Famine. There are a few exceptions, for example, transcriptions of reports, commissioned by Parliament, about The Irish Society and the Mercers’ Company, which were published later in the 19th century. In addition, the timelines section contains information about events touching the neighbouring parish of Tamlaght O’Crilly.
Index:
The topics are presented in alphabetical order: —
- Bann Navigation
- Before the Plantation
- Blog articles
- Churches
- Court reports
- Diseases and epidemics, 1831–1851
- Gazetteers
- Government commissions
- Maps:
- Newspaper transcripts
- Poverty and the Poor Law
- Pynnar’s Survey of Ulster, 1618–1619: Movanagher
- Schools, 1835
- Temperance
- The Honourable the Irish Society
- The Worshipful Company of Mercers
- Timelines for the parishes of Kilrea and Tamlaght O’Crilly
See also:
- Kilpatrick / Kirkpatrick families in the parishes of Kilrea,Tamlaght O’Crilly, and Aghadowey, on Arborealis (link pending)
- The following external websites are highly recommended:
- Ballymoney Ancestry
- Bann Valley Genealogy, hosted by Richard Torrens
- The Maghera and District Genealogy & Local History Society
Source citation for this page: — Kilpatrick, Alison. “Parish of Kilrea, County Londonderry: Local history notes.” Online at Arborealis, arborealis.ca/local-history/ireland/kilrea/, accessed [insert date of access].
Image credit: — Kilpatrick, Alison. Signpost for the town of Kilrea on the Bann Road, nine miles north of the town. Photograph and editing by Alison Kilpatrick ©2003. All rights reserved.