Eglinton, County Londonderry
Encyclopedia
Eglinton is a village in County Londonderry
, Northern Ireland
. It lies 8 miles (12.9 km) east of Derry
, to which it serves as a sleeper village
, and 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Limavady
. Many inhabitants of the village work in Derry city and send their children to school there. Eglinton had a population of 3,165 people in the 2001 Census
. The City of Derry Airport
, also known as Eglinton Aerodrome, lies a short distance from the village.
Eglinton still has an elegant church, former market house, trees around a green and four oaks which started life in Windsor Great Park
. The River Muff flows through the village with the afforested Muff Glen being situated just south of the village. At an embankment of Lough Foyle
, birdwatchers can find the feeding ground of many seabird
s and wader
s on the mud flats at low tide.
). These were the names of the townland
on the site of the original settlement. The village was founded in 1619 by the Grocers’ Company of London. As part of the Plantation of Ulster
, James I
had granted a large area (15,900 acres) of Faughanvale parish to the Grocers in 1609. The Grocers did not farm it themselves but leased this area to Edward Rone of Essex in 1615 with the stipulation that he built a bawn
and 12 houses by 1619. The yearly rent being £116-13s-4d. Unfortunately Rone died in 1618 but his brother-in-law Robert Harrington took over and by 1619 a castle and bawn and 8 houses were erected in the townland of Muff (now Eglinton) and by 1622 the stipulated building was completed
The castle (really a castellated house and bawn with 4 flanker towers) was besieged in 1641 during the English Civil War by the insurgents under Colonel McDonnell and defended by the garrison during the winter of that year. It was relieved the following summer by troops from Derry but it afterwards fell into the hands of the parliamentarians by whom it was dismantled. During the Siege of Derry the castle was briefly occupied by troops of King James while they were foraging for supplies.
The ruins were standing and occupied until 1823 when the present Rectory was built on the site. The only remains of the castle today being the cellars under the rectory.
The Church of Ireland was represented within the village by the Parish Church of Faughanvale which was built in 1626. It was later superseded by a new Parish Church constructed in 1821 with the ruins of the old church being extant within the adjacent graveyard.
The Presbyterian Church was represented in the village with the building of the first church in 1730. Prior to this, the congregation formed part of the Glendermott Congregation in the city of Derry. The original church was built in the townland of Tullanee just east of the village. The existing much larger church, Faughanvale Presbyterian Church, was built in 1894 with the help of donations from fellow citizens of the congregation who had some time earlier emigrated to the United States. Nothing remains of the original church which stood in what is now the Presbyterian Church graveyard immediately to the rear of the new church.
There were several other places called Muff at the time, especially one nearby in Donegal which created much confusion. The residents of the village resolved to afford of the opportunity to change the name. Therefore, on 19 August 1858, the village of Muff became Eglinton in honour of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the 13th Earl of Eglinton
who was visiting the nearby Templemoyle Agricultural School at the time. The school was opened in 1826 aimed at teaching new agricultural methods but eventually closed in 1865. The building remained disused for many years before being converted into a nursing home in the 1990s. In the nearby Foyle Park House, a Literary School was built in 1813 by the last tenant farmer, David Babington.
Thomas Gallagher (1840–1927), the miller’s son of Templemoyle, was the founder of the famous tobacco firm of Gallaghers, now renamed the Gallaher Group
. His relatives lived in The Glen House in the centre of Eglinton village until the 1950’s.
One of the oldest buildings today is the Erasmus Smith schoolhouse erected in 1812 beside the old national school of 1886 both now private residences. The Grocers did not resume active management of the estate until 1823 when they rebuilt the village. Among the buildings erected by the company in 1823-5 were the Rectory, a Courthouse or Market house ( an unusually well designed building by Nicholson which included a dispensary (the wall plaques outside the former courthouse are the Grocers and David Babingtons coat of arms)), a Manor house for the Grocers agent and the Glen house. All of which are still to be seen today. They also built a row of cottages for local widows which was known until quite recently as Widow's Row (now renamed Cottage Row) and tradesmen's houses along Main Street. The millers house opposite the Happy Landing public house became the old R.I.C.barracks until the present police station was built. The Grocers sold the village in 1874 to Mr James Davidson from Brechin Scotland, his descendants still reside in the manor house to this day.
During the second world war Eglinton was home to many Air Force and Naval personnel. Many old buildings currently in a state of disrepair, evidence their presence, and can still be seen dotted around the outskirts of the village. The airfield was a major base for flights over the North Atlantic, their tasks included searching for U-boats and acting as air cover for convoys. Several aircraft crashed in the vicinity of the village and the nearby airfield with several pilots and aircrew being buried locally in the Parish Church and Presbyterian Church graveyards. These brave heroes are always remembered on each and every armistice Sunday.
During the last decade Eglinton has experienced phenomenal growth due to the large number of new private houses which have been constructed in and around the village resulting in the arrival of many newcomers from far and afield.
On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 3,165 people living in Eglinton. Of these:
County Londonderry
The place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Derry preferred by nationalists and Londonderry preferred by unionists...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. It lies 8 miles (12.9 km) east of Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
, to which it serves as a sleeper village
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...
, and 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Limavady
Limavady
Limavady is a market town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, with Binevenagh as a backdrop. It lies east of Derry and south west of Coleraine. It had a population of 12,135 people in the 2001 Census, an increase of some 17% compared to 1991...
. Many inhabitants of the village work in Derry city and send their children to school there. Eglinton had a population of 3,165 people in the 2001 Census
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
. The City of Derry Airport
City of Derry Airport
City of Derry Airport is an airport located northeast of Derry, Northern Ireland. It is located on the south bank of Lough Foyle, a short distance from the village of Eglinton and from the city centre...
, also known as Eglinton Aerodrome, lies a short distance from the village.
Eglinton still has an elegant church, former market house, trees around a green and four oaks which started life in Windsor Great Park
Windsor Great Park
Windsor Great Park is a large deer park of , to the south of the town of Windsor on the border of Berkshire and Surrey in England. The park was, for many centuries, the private hunting ground of Windsor Castle and dates primarily from the mid-13th century...
. The River Muff flows through the village with the afforested Muff Glen being situated just south of the village. At an embankment of Lough Foyle
Lough Foyle
Lough Foyle, sometimes Loch Foyle , is the estuary of the River Foyle in Ulster. It starts where the Foyle leaves Derry. It separates the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland from County Londonderry in Northern Ireland.-Transport:...
, birdwatchers can find the feeding ground of many seabird
Seabird
Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...
s and wader
Wader
Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...
s on the mud flats at low tide.
History
The village of Eglinton was originally known as Muff, and alternatively as Moigh, Mough or Moyegh (all anglicisedAnglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
). These were the names of the townland
Townland
A townland or bally is a small geographical division of land used in Ireland. The townland system is of Gaelic origin—most townlands are believed to pre-date the Norman invasion and most have names derived from the Irish language...
on the site of the original settlement. The village was founded in 1619 by the Grocers’ Company of London. As part of the Plantation of Ulster
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...
, James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
had granted a large area (15,900 acres) of Faughanvale parish to the Grocers in 1609. The Grocers did not farm it themselves but leased this area to Edward Rone of Essex in 1615 with the stipulation that he built a bawn
Bawn
A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word badhún meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure". The Irish word for "cow" is bó and its plural is ba...
and 12 houses by 1619. The yearly rent being £116-13s-4d. Unfortunately Rone died in 1618 but his brother-in-law Robert Harrington took over and by 1619 a castle and bawn and 8 houses were erected in the townland of Muff (now Eglinton) and by 1622 the stipulated building was completed
The castle (really a castellated house and bawn with 4 flanker towers) was besieged in 1641 during the English Civil War by the insurgents under Colonel McDonnell and defended by the garrison during the winter of that year. It was relieved the following summer by troops from Derry but it afterwards fell into the hands of the parliamentarians by whom it was dismantled. During the Siege of Derry the castle was briefly occupied by troops of King James while they were foraging for supplies.
The ruins were standing and occupied until 1823 when the present Rectory was built on the site. The only remains of the castle today being the cellars under the rectory.
The Church of Ireland was represented within the village by the Parish Church of Faughanvale which was built in 1626. It was later superseded by a new Parish Church constructed in 1821 with the ruins of the old church being extant within the adjacent graveyard.
The Presbyterian Church was represented in the village with the building of the first church in 1730. Prior to this, the congregation formed part of the Glendermott Congregation in the city of Derry. The original church was built in the townland of Tullanee just east of the village. The existing much larger church, Faughanvale Presbyterian Church, was built in 1894 with the help of donations from fellow citizens of the congregation who had some time earlier emigrated to the United States. Nothing remains of the original church which stood in what is now the Presbyterian Church graveyard immediately to the rear of the new church.
There were several other places called Muff at the time, especially one nearby in Donegal which created much confusion. The residents of the village resolved to afford of the opportunity to change the name. Therefore, on 19 August 1858, the village of Muff became Eglinton in honour of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the 13th Earl of Eglinton
Earl of Eglinton
Earl of Eglinton is a title in the Peerage of Scotland.Some authorities spell the title: Earl of Eglintoun In 1859 the thirteenth Earl of Eglinton, Archibald Montgomerie, was also created Earl of Winton in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave him an automatic seat in the House of Lords,...
who was visiting the nearby Templemoyle Agricultural School at the time. The school was opened in 1826 aimed at teaching new agricultural methods but eventually closed in 1865. The building remained disused for many years before being converted into a nursing home in the 1990s. In the nearby Foyle Park House, a Literary School was built in 1813 by the last tenant farmer, David Babington.
Thomas Gallagher (1840–1927), the miller’s son of Templemoyle, was the founder of the famous tobacco firm of Gallaghers, now renamed the Gallaher Group
Gallaher Group
Gallaher Group is a major United Kingdom-based multinational tobacco company. It was traded on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, prior to its April 2007 acquisition by Japan Tobacco.-History:...
. His relatives lived in The Glen House in the centre of Eglinton village until the 1950’s.
One of the oldest buildings today is the Erasmus Smith schoolhouse erected in 1812 beside the old national school of 1886 both now private residences. The Grocers did not resume active management of the estate until 1823 when they rebuilt the village. Among the buildings erected by the company in 1823-5 were the Rectory, a Courthouse or Market house ( an unusually well designed building by Nicholson which included a dispensary (the wall plaques outside the former courthouse are the Grocers and David Babingtons coat of arms)), a Manor house for the Grocers agent and the Glen house. All of which are still to be seen today. They also built a row of cottages for local widows which was known until quite recently as Widow's Row (now renamed Cottage Row) and tradesmen's houses along Main Street. The millers house opposite the Happy Landing public house became the old R.I.C.barracks until the present police station was built. The Grocers sold the village in 1874 to Mr James Davidson from Brechin Scotland, his descendants still reside in the manor house to this day.
During the second world war Eglinton was home to many Air Force and Naval personnel. Many old buildings currently in a state of disrepair, evidence their presence, and can still be seen dotted around the outskirts of the village. The airfield was a major base for flights over the North Atlantic, their tasks included searching for U-boats and acting as air cover for convoys. Several aircraft crashed in the vicinity of the village and the nearby airfield with several pilots and aircrew being buried locally in the Parish Church and Presbyterian Church graveyards. These brave heroes are always remembered on each and every armistice Sunday.
During the last decade Eglinton has experienced phenomenal growth due to the large number of new private houses which have been constructed in and around the village resulting in the arrival of many newcomers from far and afield.
Transport
- Eglinton railway station opened on 29 November 1852 and finally closed on 2 July 1973.
- City of Derry AirportCity of Derry AirportCity of Derry Airport is an airport located northeast of Derry, Northern Ireland. It is located on the south bank of Lough Foyle, a short distance from the village of Eglinton and from the city centre...
, formerly RAF Eglinton, is located nearby. - The A2 between City of Derry Airport and Maydown was recently upgraded to Dual Carriageway standard which now provides a high speed link between the village and the city of Derry.
2001 Census
Eglinton is classified as an intermediate settlement by the NI Statistics and research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 2,250 and 4,500 people).On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 3,165 people living in Eglinton. Of these:
- 28.6% were aged under 16 and 10.3% were aged 60 and over
- 50.2% of the population were male and 49.8% were female
- 46.5% were from a CatholicCatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
background and 51.1% were from a ProtestantProtestantismProtestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
background - 4.0% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed.
Notable people
- David CampbellDavid Campbell (footballer)David Anthony Campbell is a former Northern Ireland international footballer who played in the midfield position....
- International footballer - Jason SmythJason SmythJason Smyth is a visually impaired Irish Paralympian. His central vision is affected by Stargardt's disease. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon...
- Paralympic Gold Medalist - Shane FergusonShane FergusonShane Kevin Ferguson is a footballer who plays for Premier League club Newcastle United and the Northern Ireland national team. He is capable of playing anywhere on the left flank as a full back or winger.-Early life:...
- International footballer