Tandragee

A small market town on a hillside above the Cusher River, overlooked by Tandragee Castle, once the seat of the O'Hanlons and since 1956 home to the Tayto crisp factory. Rebels took and burned the town in 1641. In 1943 the castle was leased to the US Army, and General Patton is reported to have been guest of honour at a dance there.

The castle was the seat of the O'Hanlon chief, Lord of Orior, until it was confiscated after the Nine Years' War and granted to Oliver St John. On 23 October 1641 Patrick and Edmond O'Hanlon took the town, burning the church and castle, and reportedly killed settlers; in 1642 Felim O'Neill gathered about 2,000 men here, and in May 1643 Robert Monro's Covenanters burned the district. In 1679 followers of Redmond O'Hanlon killed Henry St John, the castle's owner. Volunteer companies formed from 1779, and a yeomanry in 1796, the year the first Orange parades were held here. The castle was rebuilt about 1837 for the 6th Duke of Manchester.

The town opposed Home Rule from 1886, and in 1912 its castle became the headquarters of a battalion of the Ulster Volunteers. Hundreds enlisted in 1914, and in April 1925 the town unveiled the first war memorial in County Armagh. In 1943 American cavalry were based at the castle, and the Tayto factory opened in its grounds in 1956. In 2000 two local Protestant teenagers, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, were murdered by the UVF.

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

• Lisnagade · fort · 6 km
• Tandragee Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Clare Castle, County Armagh · castle · 3 km
• Gosford Castle · castle · 9 km
• Drumbanagher House · castle · 10 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.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.