County Armagh · Ulster

Keady

An Céide

'the flat-topped hill'

The story

A market town in the drumlins south of Armagh, close enough to the border to have lived by it. Like Lurgan it was a linen town, with mills along the Callan river, and the hill the name describes is the one the town is built on.

Worth seeing nearby
  • Navan Fort (Emain Macha) · Capital of the Ulaid and stage of the Ulster sagas — where a huge timber temple was built, filled with stones and deliberately burned around 95 BC.
  • The Yellow Ford · August 1598: Hugh O'Neill destroys an English army marching to relieve the Blackwater fort — the worst defeat England ever suffered in Ireland.
  • Benburb · June 1646: Owen Roe O'Neill's Spanish-trained army annihilates Monro's Scots on the Blackwater — the greatest Irish victory of the Confederate wars.
  • Emain Macha — the Red Branch · Court of King Conchobar and the Red Branch knights; where the boy Sétanta killed Culann's hound and became Cú Chulainn, 'the Hound of Culann'.
  • Emain Macha — Macha's curse · Forced to race the king's horses while pregnant, Macha cursed the men of Ulster to suffer birth-pangs in their hour of greatest need — which is why one boy fought the Táin alone. The site bears her name.
  • Emain Macha — Deirdre of the Sorrows · Deirdre, promised to King Conchobar, fled with Naoise; when he was killed on their return to Emain she died of grief. In some tellings, yew trees grew from the two graves and twined together.
  • Slieve Gullion — the Cailleach's lake · Fionn swam in the summit lake for a maiden's lost ring and emerged an old man — the Cailleach's trick. Even now, they say, swimmers' hair turns grey.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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