Antrim
'lone ridge'; the original name is said to have been Aontreibh, 'lone house', for the monks' house, later reinterpreted as Aontroim
The county town lies on the Six Mile Water where it meets the north-east shore of Lough Neagh. Tradition holds that a monastery was founded here in 495, and its round tower, 'the Steeple', still stands, one of the most complete in Ireland at 93 feet. In June 1798 about 4,000 United Irishmen under Henry Joy McCracken came close to taking the town before reinforcements arrived.
Tradition says a monastery was founded here in 495, thirty years after St Patrick's death, and a settlement grew around it; the round tower is all that survives. In the early Middle Ages the area was in Dál Araide, whose kings lived at the ringfort of Rathmore on the town's eastern edge. Anglo-Normans under John de Courcy took it in the late 12th century and raised a motte that still stands in Antrim Castle Gardens. When the earldom collapsed in the early 14th century the area passed to Clannaboy, whose O'Neill chiefs lived at Edenduffcarrick, later Shane's Castle.
After the Nine Years' War the area was planted with English and Scottish settlers, and Hugh Clotworthy oversaw the building of Antrim Castle beside the Norman motte; he was knighted in 1617, and in 1642 his fleet fought on Lough Neagh. On 7 June 1798 about 4,000 United Irishmen led by Henry Joy McCracken attacked the town and were close to taking it when British reinforcements arrived; a band under James Hope covered the retreat. The borough sent two members to the Irish Commons under a 1666 patent until 1801. The castle burned in 1922, leaving an octagonal tower, and Steeple House was destroyed by fire in 2019.
Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Antrim ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Antrim Castle · castle · 2 km
- Shane's Castle · castle · 5 km
- Castle Upton · castle · 8 km
Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.
- Lough Neagh — the flung sod · Fionn scooped up a clod of earth to throw at a Scottish giant; the hole filled with water (Lough Neagh) and the clod landed in the sea (the Isle of Man).
All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.
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