Discover Craigavon

Welcome

Welcome to Craigavon Borough, where you'll discover a beautiful natural world of lakes, forests and parkland, atmospheric islands, historic towns and charming villages and the friendliest of welcomes. Based around the towns of Portadown, Lurgan and Craigavon, the Borough encompasses some of the most beautiful scenery in Northern Ireland.

Famous Locals

Suggest Someone
Gloria HunnifordTV Presenter
Dame Mary PetersEducated in Portadown
Neil LennonFormer Professional Footballer
George RussellPoet, painter and writer
Sir John DillBritish commander in World War I and World War II
Colin Henry Turkington Auto racing driver

Did you know...

  • Lough Neagh is the largest freshwater lake...
    in the whole of the British Isles and the third largest in Europe, with a surface area of 383 square kilometres.
  • Craigavon is named after the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Lord Craigavon (James Craig)...
    who was appointed on June 7th 1921, two weeks before the opening of the Northern Ireland Parliament.
  • One of the world's most unique brown trouts, the Dollaghan...
    which has survived from the Ice Age, can only be found in the waters of Lough Neagh and some of the rivers that feed it. It's the only trout in the world that migrates to local rivers to spawn before returning to the Lough rather than the sea.
  • Lough Neagh is home to the largest commercial wild eel fishery...
    in the world, which exports eels to London, Holland and Germany. Still caught in the traditional way in Lough Neagh, eels were once part of the diet of the early Christian monks who lived by the Lough.
  • Lurgan Park is the second largest public park in Ireland...
    and provides a bowling green, cricket pitch, football pitch, children's play area, tennis courts and angling facilities. The 59-acre manmade Lurgan Lake within it was dug as part of a famine relief scheme in 1745, as a means of creating work for local people. The expression for those who look forlorn, "a face like a Lurgan spade", comes from a contemporary description of those who did the work, for less than the going rate!
  • One of the gravestones in the Shankill Graveyard outside Lurgan reads...
    'Here lies Margorie McCall. Lived Once, Buried Twice.' Margorie, who lived in the 18th century, was wrongly pronounced dead and only revived after burial, when grave robbers tried to cut of her finger to retrieve a stubborn gold ring.
  • Portadown was known as the 'Hub of the North" in the late 19th...
    and early 20th centuries when it could be reached by rail or road from all areas of Ireland.
  • The first meeting of Quakers in Ireland was held in Lurgan...
    in 1654 by shopkeeper William Edmundson. The Craigavon area became very popular with Quakers, many of whom worked in the local linen industry, one of the most important in Ireland. One of the most extensive libraries of Quaker (and Methodist) books in Ireland is held by the Craigavon Museum on Oxford Island.
  • Master McGrath, the most celebrated of all greyhounds,
    was owned by Charles Brownlow, the second Baron Lurgan. The greyhound won the Waterloo Cup, the 19th century's greatest sporting event for greyhounds, a record three times and was presented to Queen Victoria, who called him 'the most famous dog of all time'. A replica statue of him stands at the entrance to Craigavon Borough Council's Civic Centre.
  • Gloria Hunniford, one of the most famous broadcasters to emerge from Northern Ireland
    Gloria was born in Portadown in 1940. Presenter of numerous television and radio shows, she was the first woman to have her own daily show on BBC Radio 4 and was voted 'TV Personality of the Year' in 1985.
  • Dame Mary Peters
    Though born in England, Mary's athletic talent was first spotted and developed at Portadown College, where she studied after the family moved to Northern Ireland. She won the Pentathlon gold medal in the 1972 Olympics and was awarded an MBE a year later.
  • Neil Lennon, Born in Lurgan in 1971
    Neil played briefly for Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra, before coming to fame under Martin O'Neill at Leicester City and then Celtic, where he became an integral part of the club's success. He played 39 times for Northern Ireland, including many appearances as captain.
  • George Russell, one of the most important contributors to the Irish Literary Revival
    Russell was born at 12 William Street (marked by an Ulster History Circle blue plaque), Lurgan in 1867.  A friend of WB Yeats and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, he wrote plays, novels and poems under the pseudonym AE.
  • Sir John Dill
    Born at 63 Market Street (marked by an Ulster History Circle blue plaque) in Lurgan in 1881, John Dill had a distinguished military carer before being sent to Washington as a senior military diplomat. His role there during the Second World War caused President Roosevelt to describe him as, "the most important figure in the remarkable accord that has been developed in the combined operations of our two countries."
  • Colin Henry Turkington, the successful auto racing driver was born in Portadown in 1982
    He began his racing career in karting, moved on to the Ford Credit Fiesta Zetec Championship (which he won in 2001) and then onto the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) in 2002. He won third place in the BTCC in 2006, his highest position so far.

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