Portadown

The name describes a landing place: a port on the Bann below a small fort. Linen and the railway made it a junction town in the 19th century, and its position on the Bann has made it a place where routes, and arguments, converge ever since.

Portadown is Port an Dúnáin, the landing place of the little fort, probably a McCann fort; the McCanns held Clancann under the O'Neills. In the Plantation the land passed to Michael Obins, who built a mansion and houses for English tenants, got a licence for a fair and market in 1631 and built the first bridge over the Bann. In November 1641 Irish rebels, probably under Toole McCann, forced about 100 captured settlers off that bridge and shot those who swam ashore — one of the worst atrocities of the rebellion, later used to justify Cromwell's conquest. A linen market set up in 1762 laid the foundation of the town's industry.

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

• Lisnagade · fort · 13 km
• Tandragee Castle · castle · 8 km
• Clare Castle, County Armagh · castle · 10 km
• Gosford Castle · castle · 13 km

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

• 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. From here the boy Sétanta followed the king to the smith Culann's feast, 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 Naoise was killed on their return to Emain, Conchobar kept her, then gave her to his killer, Éogan. She threw herself from the chariot against a rock. Later tellings have her die of grief, and in some, yew trees grew from the two graves and twined together.
• 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.