Dungannon (, )
For centuries, Dungannon was the 'capital' of the O'Neill dynasty of Tír Eoghain, who dominated most of Ulster and built a castle on the hill. After the O'Neills' defeat in the Nine Years' War, the English founded a plantation town on the site. A linen centre in the 19th century, it attracted an extensive food processing industry in the late 20th. Moy Park, a leading poultry producer, is today the town's largest employer. As a result of May Park and other processors sourcing immigrant labour, Dungannon currently has the highest percentage of residents born outside of the British Isles of any town in Northern Ireland.
History
17th Century
The O'Neills
For centuries, Dungannon's fortunes were closely tied to that of the O'Neill dynasty which ruled a large part of
Ulster until the 17th century. Dungannon was the clan's main stronghold. The traditional site of inauguration for 'The O'Neill' was
Tullyhogue Fort, an
Iron Age mound some four miles northeast of Dungannon. The clan O'Hagan were the stewards of this site for the O'Neills. In the 14th century the O'Neills built a castle on what is today known as Castle Hill; the location was ideal for a fort, for it was one of the highest points in the area and dominated the surrounding countryside, giving (depending on the weather) the ability to see seven counties.
This castle was burned in 1602 by Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, as Crown forces under Lord Mountjoy closed in on the Gaelic lords towards the end of the Nine Years' War. In 1607, ninety-nine Irish chieftains and their followers, including Hugh O'Neill, set sail from Rathmullan, bound for the continent, in an event known as the Flight of the Earls. In what became known as the Plantation of Ulster, their lands were confiscated and awarded to Protestant English and Scots settlers; Dungannon and its castle were granted to Sir Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy of Ireland.
Plantation town
As part of the Plantation, in 1608 James I chartered a number of '"free schools" for the sons of local merchants and farmers. This included the Royal School Dungannon, established in the town in 1636, and occupying its present site south-east of Castle Hill from 1789 with the erection of the building we now know as the "Old Grey Mother" by the Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Robinson.
Sir Phelim O'Neill seized the town in the opening stages of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, and issued the Proclamation of Dungannon, in which the rebels set out their aims and proclaimed their loyalty to Charles I. O'Neill claimed they had been ordered to rise by the King, and later produced a forged commission in support of this.
During the course of the Irish Confederate Wars, Dungannon changed hands several times; Scots Covenanter forces under Alexander Leslie captured it in September 1642, before O'Neill took it back in spring 1643.
In 1689, during the Williamite War, Castle Hill, with still extant fortifications, was occupied by a Jacobitism force, and hosted King James II as he passed en route to the Siege of Derry.
18th Century
Volunteer conventions
In 1782, as the "most central town of Ulster",
[Paterson, T. G. F.; A Relic of 1782, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol. 3 (1940)] Dungannon was chosen as the site for a convention of the Volunteers. Initially formed for defence against the French in the American War of Independence, the Volunteers had increasingly been agitated by the same kinds of grievances driving rebellion among their kinsmen in America
(among them, local emigrants who, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, had established the township of Dungannon, Virginia).
Delegates from 147 Volunteer corps assembled at the Presbyterian church on Scotch Street, previously favoured as a meeting place for the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster.[W. T. Latimer; Church of the Volunteers, Dungannon, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sep. 1894).] Taking on "the substance of a national assembly",[Brendan Clifford (1974), "Notes on the political framework of Ireland 1780-1800", Belfast Politics by Henry Joy, United Irish Reprints: no. 4, B&ICO, Belfast, p. 82] the Convention resolved that the right asserted by the The Crown to overrule the Irish Parliament in Dublin, and to legislate for Ireland from Westminster was "unconstitutional" and "illegal".
Two further Volunteer conventions were held in Dungannon, in 1783 and 1793. In the context, of debating reform of the Irish parliament, the Volunteers divided over the question of Catholic emancipation, Protestants alone having the right to vote, to assume office and to carry arms.
Orangemen and United men
Local veterans of Volunteer movement broke into two camps; those who joined the new-formed
Orange Order, sworn to uphold the Protestant Ascendancy, in forming a loyal
yeomanry, and those who, having taken the United Irish oath "to obtain an equal, full and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland",
began raiding the homesteads of these yeomen to procure arms and gunpowder.
Martial law imposed on the area from January 1797, broke the local United Irish organisation. The rebellion in the summer of 1798, which saw risings in counties Antrim and Down, was chiefly marked in Dungannon by Court-martial in which United Irishmen were sentenced to floggings and to penal transportation.
19th century
Linen
The town in which the Volunteers had gathered, was still largely a settlement of thatched houses. But by 1802, a surveyor for the Dublin Society was able to describe it as "one of the most prosperous towns in the North of Ireland in the
linen trade," and as "inferior" to no other "for its rapid progress in building". In the 1820s and 30s, buyers for the bleachers would come from Belfast every Thursday and take their places on the "standings" on the east side of Market Square where the farmers brought their "webs" of raw, unbleached linen woven by their families and servants.
The Workhouse
In 1842, following the application to Ireland of the new English Poor Law system of
(an alternative to
outdoor relief, that made it easier for landlords to clear their estates in favour of larger English-export-oriented farms),
a
Workhouse was built in Dungannon.
Until its closure in 1948, about 1000 people passed through its doors. A memorial on the former site, now the grounds of the South Tyrone Hospital, commemorates "all those who sought shelter" within its walls. This includes the victims of the Great Famine and the attendant
cholera and
typhus.
Among these were the "Irish Famine Orphan Girls", a group of young women sent from the workhouse to Australia between 1848 and 1850.
Tenant agitation
In 1834, Dungannon had again been the venue for a regional convention: upwards of 75,000 people attended a "Great Protestant Meeting" called by the sometime Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Henry Cooke and by Tory grandees. Landlords and their retinues were joined by parading Orangemen.
Locally, the call for Protestant unity was not well heeded. Tithes levied atop rents on behalf of the established Church of Ireland, failure to respect the protections of the
Ulster Custom, and
Rack-rent, set tenant farmers, Protestant and Catholic alike, at odds with the landed
gentry were drawn to the Tenant Right League, and subsequently the direct-action Irish National Land League.
[Kirkpatrick, R. W. (1980), "Origins and development of the land war in mid-Ulster, 1879–85" in F. S. Lyons and R. A. J. Hawkins (eds.) Ireland under the Union: varieties of tension: Essays in honour of T. W. Moody, Oxford University Press, pp. 201–35.]
With the introduction in 1872 of the secret ballot, landlords and their agents who, in the traditional hustings, had been able to monitor how their tenants voted, could no longer secure the election of Conservative candidates for Parliament. In 1874, Dungannon elected Thomas Alexander Dickson (of Milltown House), an independent Liberal who offered himself as an opponent of "rack renting and serfdom",[Walker, B.M., ed. (1978). Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. pp. 213–214, 276–277. .]
From 1886, the Dickson legacy was sustained in an enlarged South Tyrone constituency by Thomas Russell, champion of the Ulster Farmers and Labourers Union, MP until 1910 when, after being addressed in a series of land acts, agrarian issues were overshadowed by the return to the political agenda of Irish home rule.
Twentieth Century
Unionist-Nationalist division
In 1913, 1,200 Ulster Volunteers paraded before
Edward Carson, leader of the unionist, almost exclusively Protestant, opposition to Irish self-government.
The nationalist response, was the formation of the
Irish Volunteers, whose membership in Tyrone, standing at 8,600 on the eve of the Great War in July 1914, was double that of Carson's Volunteers in the county.
In the town itself (now the Dungannon District Electoral Area) unionists continued to dominate electorally until the end of the century (nationalists--Sinn Féin, the SDLP and a Republican independent—won their first majority, four of six councillors, in 2023).
Housing and civil rights protest
Dungannon in early 1960s was described as "an average country town" with a population of around seven thousand, "half Protestant, half Catholic". The "best, and largest, firms", including the town's two textile factories, were Protestant owned, and "the upper echelons of the workforce were virtually all Protestant". For working-class Catholics the most "crushing problem" was the housing shortage, as the one ward in which Nationalist (Catholic) councillors could assign tenancies had seen no new houses built by the Unionist-controlled council.
In a reference to the black American civil-rights struggle, women and children protesting housing policy outside a meeting of the Dungannon Urban District Council in May 1963 held a placard with the slogan "If Our Religion Is Against Us Ship Us to Little Rock".[Prince, Simon (2018). Northern Ireland’s ’68: Civil Rights, Global Revolt and the Origins of the Troubles. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, p. 70. ] Three months later, 17 families squatted an estate of pre-fabricated bungalows at Fairmount Park in protest, the beginning of a campaign for an independent points-based system of housing allocation.
On 24 August 1968, the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ), launched in town by Councillor Patricia McCluskey and her husband Conn, a local GP,[ Chronology of the Conflict: 1968 , cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 June 2013.]
The Troubles
During the Troubles, the Dungannon district suffered numerous bombings, and almost 50 people were killed in and around the town.
[ CAIN , cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 17 June 2016.] The two deadliest attacks involved, in March 1976, the Ulster Volunteer Force detonating a
car bomb outside a
Public house crowded with people celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, and, in December 1979, a land-mine ambush of a British Army patrol by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Hillcrest Bar bombing, on Donaghmore Road, killed four civilians—including two 13-year-old boys standing outside—and injured almost 50 people.
[Wharton, Ken (2013). Wasted Years, Wasted Lives, Volume 1: The British Army in Northern Ireland, 1975-1977. UK: Helion & Company] The land-mine attack against
British Army Land Rovers on the Ballygawley Road, killed four British soldiers.
The most extensive property damage was caused in March 1979 by a 50lb IRA bomb that destroyed a bank and a row of shops on Scotch street.
Survey of the town, 1971
In a survey, published in 1971 by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, the site of the town on the southern slope of the Castle Hill, running down to the Rhone river, is described as "impressive". Note is made of the "careful planting and parkland, inherited from the 18lh and early centuries" which forms a "continuous swathe of natural beauty stretching from Killymeal in the north through Windmill Wood, Ballynorthland, Milltown and Mullaghanagh to terminate in Ballysaggart Lough", and that the skyline remains "dominated by the spires of the principal churches, St. Patrick's, St. Anne's and the tower of the Presbyterian church". The authors were less sanguine about contemporary developments, and sounded a warning note for the future:
The principal streets of the old town, Ann Street, Irish Street, Scotch Street, Church Street, Perry Street and Northland Row, retain most of their original buildings but in general, though with a significant number of individual exceptions, their character is being surely eroded by neglect or thoughtless alterations and by traffic. While the centre quietly decays, new building spreads in a sporadic rash in all directions, gradually choking the impressive glimpses of the countryside which the elevation of the central area can afford, reaching as far as the Mourne Mountains and hills of Armagh. Ballynorthland demesne and Dungannon Park retain most of their ornamental timber, one of the town's finest remaining assets, but positive steps must be taken to prevent their being allowed to decay and engulfed through the seeming apathy and indifference of the townspeople to their inheritance.
21st century, new immigrant population
From the 1990s, employers in the town, and in particularly the food processors, began employing immigrant labour. It was a development that made headlines in December 2005 when an altercation was reported between
and East Timorese workers in a parking lot outside
Moy Park, a poultry processor
(founded in 1943 in the neighboring village of
Moygashel).
[>] In addition to the East Timorese, through labour recruiters in Portugal, employers brought other Portuguese-speaking workers to Dungannon, so that today the town also has residents born in
Portugal,
Brazil, and
Mozambique.
The 2021 Census recorded over a third of the town's population as born outside of the British Isles,
In a blow to the local food-processing economy, in January 2026 ABP Foods announced its intention to cease retail packing at its packing facility in Granville Industrial Estate in Dungannon, with a loss of 338 jobs.
Demography
The population of the town increased slightly overall during the 19th century:
2011 census
Dungannon had a population of 14,340 at the 2011 census, rising by 3,349 (over 30%) from 10,983 in 2001, making it one of the fastest growing towns in Northern Ireland.
It has the highest percentage of immigrants of any town in Northern Ireland.
[ "NI migrant population triples in decade, says study" . BBC News, 26 June 2014] Immigrants make up about 11% of its population; more than twice the average. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of immigrants in Dungannon increased tenfold; the biggest increase of any town.
Many came to work in the local food processing plants. There have been several attacks on immigrants
[ "Politicians unite to condemn 'racist' sign in Moygashel" , Tyrone Courier, 8 January 2014; accessed 7 September 2014.] and clashes between rival groups of immigrants
in the area.
On census day in 2011 (27 March 2011), there were 14,340 people living in Dungannon (5,388 households), accounting for 0.79% of the NI total.
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22.01% were aged under 16 years and 12.09% were aged 65 and over;
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50.33% of the usually resident population were female and 49.67% were male;
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64.82% belong to or were brought up in the Catholic Christian faith, 30.46% belong to or were brought up in a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' religion;
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31.63% had an Irish national identity, 28.27% indicated that they had a British national identity and 23.93% had a Northern Irish national identity (respondents could indicate more than one national identity);
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34 years was the average (median) age of the population;
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15.93% had some knowledge of Irish (Gaeilge), 4.82% had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots and 23.18% did not have English as their first language.
2021 census
In the 2021 census, Dungannon was recorded as having a population of 16,282,
a 13.5% increase from 2011. Of these:
-
34.85% of the town's population was recorded as foreign-born (born outside the United Kingdom and Ireland),
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The largest foreign-born communities are (1,777 people), Lithuanians (1,565 people), Polish people (717 people) and Portuguese (578 people).
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67.15% of the population belong to or were brought up in the Catholic Christian faith, 24.25% belong to or were brought up in a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' religion, and 1.63% belonged to or were brought up in an other religion. 6.96% either declared no religion or did not state their religion.
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22.45% were aged under 16 years and 12.48% were aged 65 or over.
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49.24% of the usually resident population were female and 50.76% were male.
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15.38% had some knowledge of the Irish language,
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27.15% had an Irish national identity,
+Religion or religion brought up in (2021 census) |
|
| Catholic: British/Irish/Northern Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (with or without non-UK or Irish national identities) | 6,117 | 37.57 |
| Catholic: Other | 4,817 | 29.58 |
|
| Protestant/Other Christian: British/Irish/Northern Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (with or without non-UK or Irish national identities) | 3,534 | 21.70 |
| Protestant/Other Christian: Other | 416 | 2.55 |
|
| Other religions: British/Irish/Northern Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (with or without non-UK or Irish national identities) | 114 | 0.70 |
| Other religions: Other | 151 | 0.93 |
|
| None: British/Irish/Northern Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (with or without non-UK or Irish national identities) | 441 | 2.71 |
| None: Other | 693 | 4.25 |
|
+Ethnic groups (2021 census) |
|
| White: British/Irish/Northern Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (with or without non-UK or Irish national identities) | 9,393 | 57.69 |
| White: Other White | 3,487 | 21.42 |
| White: Irish Travellers | 118 | 0.72 |
| White: Romani people | 35 | 0.21 |
|
| Black/Black British: Black African | 341 | 2.09 |
| Black/Black British: Black Other | 926 | 5.69 |
|
| Asian/Asian British: Other Asian | 959 | 5.89 |
| Asian/Asian British: British Chinese | 86 | 0.53 |
| Asian/Asian British: British Indians | 76 | 0.47 |
| Asian/Asian British: Arabs | 33 | 0.20 |
| Asian/Asian British: Filipino | 20 | 0.12 |
| Asian/Asian British: Pakistani | 8 | 0.05 |
|
|
|
Places of interest
An interesting feature of the town is the former Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at the northeastern corner of the market square which is quite unlike any other police barracks of a similar vintage in Ireland. A popular but apocryphal story relates that the unusual design of this building is due to a mix-up with the plans in
Dublin which meant Dungannon got a station designed for
Nepal and they got a standard Irish barracks, complete with a traditional Irish fireplace. Dungannon Park covers ; it is centred round an idyllic still-water lake, with miles of pathways and views of the surrounding townland.
Geography
Dungannon is in the southeast of County Tyrone, within the historic barony of
Dungannon Middle and the civil parish of Drumglass.
The town grew up around a hill, known locally as Castle Hill.
Townlands
Dungannon sprang up in a
townland called Drumcoo. Over time, the urban area has spread into the neighbouring townlands. Many of its roads and housing estates are named after them. The following is a list of these townlands and their likely etymologies:
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Ballynorthland Park
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Ballysaggart ()
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Coolhill (from Cúlchoill meaning 'the backwoods')
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Drumcoo (from Druim Cuaiche meaning 'ridge of the cuckoo')
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Drumharriff (from Druim Thairbh meaning 'ridge of the bull')
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Gortmerron (from Gort Mearain meaning 'Merron's field')
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Killymaddy (from Coill na Madaí meaning 'wood of the dogs')
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Killymeal (from Coill na Maoile meaning 'wood of the bald/hornless cow')
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Lisnaclin (from Lios na Clinge meaning 'ringfort of the bell chime')
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Lisnahull (from Lios a' Choill meaning 'ringfort of the hazel')
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Lurgaboy (from Lurga Buí meaning 'yellow shin' i.e. shin-shaped hill)
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Mullaghadun (from Mullach a' Dúin meaning 'hilltop of the fort')
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Mullaghanagh (from Mullán na hÁithe meaning 'hillock of the kiln')
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Mullaghconor Glebe (from Mullach Conchobhair meaning 'Conchobhar's summit')
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Mullaghmore (from Mullach Mór meaning 'big hilltop')
Economy
Until its closure in 2010, the crystal glass producer
Tyrone Crystal was based in Dungannon.
Schools
There are over a dozen primary schools in the area. Secondary schools include the Royal School Dungannon, Integrated College Dungannon, St Patrick's Academy,
Drumglass High School and St Patricks's College.
Transport
Dungannon is linked to the M1 motorway, which runs from the southeast of the town to
Belfast. There is an
Ulsterbus town bus service that runs daily that serves the town's suburbs,
formerly operated by the
Optare Solo buses. The nearest railway station is on Northern Ireland Railways.
Former railways
The
Irish gauge Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway (PD&O) linked the town with from 1858 and
Omagh from 1861,
completing the –
Derry railway route that came to be informally called "The Derry Road".
The Great Northern Railway took over the PD&O in 1876
[Hajducki, op. cit., page xiii] and built a
branch line from Dungannon to
Cookstown in 1879.
The GNR Board cut back the Cookstown branch to Coalisland in 1956[Hajducki, op. cit., map 39] and the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) closed the branch altogether in 1959.
Notable people
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Darren Clarke (born 1968) – professional golfer
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Thomas J. Clarke (1858–1916) – first signatory of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic; executed by the British authorities
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Dixie Paumier Clement – Irish-born Australian physician and Obstetrics
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Austin Currie (1939–2021) – former member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and Dáil Éireann, attended St Patrick's Academy in Dungannon.
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Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (born 1947) – former British MP; Irish republican activist, attended St Patrick's Girls Academy in Dungannon.
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Richard Dowse (1824–1890) – judge
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Ryan Farquhar (born 1976) – motorcycle racer
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Fra Fee (born 1987) – film, stage actor
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Dominic Gates (born 1954/1955) – journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner
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Adrian Logan (born 1955) – television presenter
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Patricia McCluskey (1914–2010) local councillor, civil rights activist.
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Peru Two – criminal (convicted drug smuggler)
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Gerry McGeough (born 1958) – Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer; prison escapee.
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Niall McGinn (born 1987) – footballer, Dungannon Swifts.
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Gerry McKenna (born 1953) – MRIA, biologist, Senior Vice President of the Royal Irish Academy, Vice Chancellor and President of University of Ulster
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Kris Meeke (born 1979) – rally driver
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Colin Morgan (born 1986) – actor, attended Integrated College Dungannon
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Sister Nivedita (born Margaret Elizabeth Noble) (1867–1911) – social worker, author, teacher and disciple of Swami Vivekananda
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George T. Oliver (1848–1919) – U.S. Senator
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Henry W. Oliver (1840–1904) – Pittsburgh industrialist
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Joanne Salley (born 1977) – television presenter
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Victor Sloan (born 1945) – artist
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Thomas Wilson Spence (1846–1912) – Wisconsin lawyer and state politician
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Gareth Steenson (born 1984) – rugby union player
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Birdy Sweeney (1931–1999) – actor
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Patrick Wallace (born 1969) – snooker player
Sport
Cricket
Dungannon Cricket Club was established in 1865.
Attempts were made to re-establish the club after the First World War and this was done in 1929 and survived until 1933 when Lord Ranfurly died, which for a second time left the club without a ground. Cricket was kept alive by the Royal School, Bankers and the RUC until 1939 when the Second World War broke out. The club was reformed in 1948 mainly due to the efforts of Eddie Hodgett and the NCU leagues in 1952 and continues to do so to the present time. The club has played on at least five different locations during its existence. Home games are played at Dungannon Park.
Football
Dungannon Swifts F.C. is the town's local team, which plays in the
NIFL Premiership, and is Tyrone's only representative in the league, following Omagh Town's collapse. The club represented Northern Ireland in European competition in the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup
and the 2007–08 UEFA Cup.
Gaelic games
The local boys' Gaelic football club is Dungannon Thomas Clarkes (
Thomáis Uí Chléirigh Dún Geanainn) while the ladies' football team is Aodh a Ruadh.
Greyhound racing
Greyhound racing was once a popular sport in Dungannon. The Dungannon Greyhound Stadium was opened in July 1930, the third track in Northern Ireland after Celtic Park and
Dunmore Stadium.
The stadium, also known as the Oaks Park Greyhound Stadium, remained operational until January 2003 when it was closed by Dungannon (Oaks Park) Stadium Greyhound Racing Limited who had taken over the track in 1995 and saw the opportunity to make a substantial profit by developing the site.
Rugby
Dungannon RFC, founded in 1873, was one of the first towns in Ireland to form a
Rugby Union club.
Other sports
Dungannon Golf Club, which has an 18-hole course, appointed its first woman captain in January 2022.
While there has been a hare coursing club in Dungannon since the 1920s, as the practice is banned in Northern Ireland, the club organises meetings in the Republic of Ireland.
See also
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Abbeys and priories in Northern Ireland (County Tyrone)
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List of towns and villages in Northern Ireland
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List of localities in Northern Ireland by population
Sources
External links
