Limavady

A market town in the Roe Valley with Binevenagh behind it. The name recalls a local tale of an O'Cahan chief's dog leaping the river to fetch help in an attack. Jane Ross, who lived on Main Street, collected the tune 'Londonderry Air' from a local fiddler in the mid-19th century, later sung as 'Danny Boy', and in 1987 Richard Branson's balloon came down here after the first transatlantic hot-air crossing.

The area's origins are uncertain. St Columba is recorded presiding over a meeting of kings at Mullagh Hill nearby in 575. The O'Cahans were the leading family, and O'Cahan's Rock, where the dog is said to have made its leap, is in Roe Valley Country Park. In 1608 James I licensed Sir Thomas Phillips to distil whiskey, and in 1610 he was granted 13,100 acres, including an O'Cahan castle, where he laid out the 'Newtown of Limavady' on a cross plan. It was incorporated by royal charter on 31 March 1613, and by 1622 had 18 houses and an inn around a crossroads with a cross and stocks.

The Limavady Distillery was founded on the Roe in 1750, but the town missed the 19th-century linen boom and stayed a modest market town until late in the 20th century. The town hall was completed in 1872, and the Broighter Gold hoard was found nearby in 1896. RAF Limavady opened north of the town in 1941 for Atlantic patrols and served as a naval air station until 1958. Four people were killed in or near the town by the IRA during the Troubles, and in 1987 Branson and Per Lindstrand landed here after their balloon crossing.

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

• Limavady Castle · castle · 3 km
• Dungiven Castle · castle · 14 km

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

• Mount Sandel · Ireland's oldest known settlement — where hunter-gatherers built huts above the Bann around 7000 BC. There is nothing to see but the view; that is the point.
• Banagher Old Church · A stone mortuary house two metres high, the finest of a small Ulster group, said to hold the bones of Muiredach O’Heney. An inscription claims 474; the building is more likely late 11th century, and the Annals of Ulster first mention the place in 1121.
• Banagher — the lucky sand · Sand lifted from beside Muiredach O’Heney’s mortuary house is supposed to bring luck to whoever carries it — and the tradition is not dead: people still take it before a match.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.