Ballymena

The heart of the mid-Antrim linen country and of Ulster Scots Presbyterianism, with a reputation for thrift that the town rather enjoys. Liam Neeson was born here.

Ringforts and souterrains surround Ballymena, and at Kirkinriola a slab carved with a cross and the name of Bishop Degen, of the 7th century, was found by a gravedigger in 1868. A church was founded at Connor, five miles south, in the late 5th century, and Vikings burned it in 831. The Normans built a motte at Harryville, one of the best-surviving in Northern Ireland, and on 10 September 1315 Edward Bruce defeated the Earl of Ulster at the Battle of Connor nearby.

In 1607 James I granted the Ballymena estate to the Irish chief Ruairí Óg MacQuillan; it passed later to the Scottish laird William Adair, who in 1626 got the right to a Saturday market. By 1704 the town had 800 people. On 7 June 1798 United Irishmen stormed the market house and briefly held the town with more than 10,000 men, but the rising collapsed and it surrendered on the 9th, escaping the burning that Randalstown and Ballymoney suffered. The Moravian settlement at Gracehill was founded in 1765.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Ballymena ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Shane's Castle · castle · 15 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.