In praise of Lurgan

[armaghniac]

from the Irish Times Monday 11  October



IN NORTH Armagh they're rolling out the "Lurgan champagne" but it's not the expensive Veuve Clicquot or Moët variety. It is an affectionate euphemism for Buckfast tonic wine, locally called "Buckie" and made by the Benedictine monks of the eponymously named abbey in Devon who used an old recipe from France for their tipple.

The occasion for the celebrations is the fact that this year Lurgan is marking its 400th anniversary. And the powers that be are making a determined effort to reinvent its image to attract visitors to a part of the North that doesn't feature much on most tourists' radar but which has some elegant architecture that has been imaginatively restored.

Appropriately for its quarter-centenary, Lurgan has divided itself into Quarters promoting its heritage and colourful figures from its past. In 1610 John Brownlow of Nottingham was granted 1,500 acres of land that included Lurgyvallivacken, later shortened to Ballylurgan, and in 1629 became simply Lurgan.

Fast-forward to 2010 and this year, under a shopfront improvement scheme run in conjunction with Craigavon Council, many businesses have been spruced up with modern facades, brighter lighting and new signs. Some of the most impressive vernacular and ecclesiastical buildings are being renovated. Derelict properties have been overhauled and given new life; others, such as old mills, have been repurposed and turned into flats or taken over by small businesses.

Two of the main churches – St Peter's Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland Christ the Redeemer – are undergoing a multi-million pound makeover. More than £3 million is being spent on St Peter's, a late-Victorian church with a thin lofty spire built in the French gothic style, and £1.3 million on repointing the Church of Ireland tower.

Despite the Troubles and recent incidents that have projected it into the news headlines, Lurgan has managed to preserve some of its finest buildings and much of its historic fabric has been retained. It is a place with a strong pride in its past. A walk along the main streets is an architectural eye-opener with Georgian and Victorian town houses sitting alongside 20th- and 21st-century buildings. The development of the town is inextricably linked to the Quakers, who held their first meeting in Ireland here in 1654. Highly industrious, they were of great value to the town. The old Quaker meeting house is now occupied by accountants but in 1995 a new one was built, where weekly services are held.

A swathe of classical buildings, including banks and building societies in the central shopping streets, sit cheek by jowl with Paolo's Pizza, Central Chippy and Pound Shops. Vacant buildings, a product of the recession, detract from the grandeur of the streetscape but the imprint of the past is all around. Coach arches leading into laneways and courtyards still survive along with crumbling red brick industrial buildings, such as stitching factories for making handkerchiefs.

The first power loom factory was built here in 1855, and in 1866 James Malcolm set up the first factory for hemstitching of linen by machine. Linen was the essential basis of Ulster's prosperity and stimulated other industrial enterprises. In his 1888 Guide and Directory to County Armagh , GH Bassett wrote: "With the single exception of Belfast, no town in Ireland has increased in population and wealth so rapidly as Lurgan . . . this progress is entirely due to the development of the linen industry".

The neoclassical Mechanics Institute in Market Street is an intriguing landmark building and a throwback to another age. Its square tower sticks up like an exclamation mark in the town centre and is a focal point with its newly painted sky-blue façade. Built at a cost of £1,400 in 1858 as a place for the mechanics who worked in the linen power loom factories, it now houses a cafe, snooker room and private members' bar.

Along William Street a blue plaque on the wall of No 12 records the birthplace of a poet, mystic and social reformer who became one of the founders of the Irish literary revival and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. George William Russell, who wrote under the pseudonym AE, was born in the street on April 10th, 1867. He attended Lurgan Model School for seven years before his family moved to Dublin in 1878. He was educated at Rathmines School and later went to the Metropolitan School of Art, where he met WB Yeats. His name is now commemorated in his home town in the newly established Russell Quarter.

But the historic name most associated with Lurgan is Brownlow and it lives on today – not only in the Brownlow Quarter and in Brownlow Terrace – but specifically in the architectural showpiece Brownlow House, an astonishing building on which £4 million has been spent in recent years. Built in the late 1830s in the Elizabethan style by Charles Brownlow (later Lord Lurgan) from honey-coloured Scottish sandstone, it was designed by the Edinburgh architect William Henry Playfair. It stood in an estate of 259 acres and included a lake which was dug as part of an employment relief scheme.

The spades used in the scheme had long blades that led to a well-known phrase to describe someone who is looking miserable: "A face as long as a Lurgan spade". Perhaps a glass of "Lurgan champagne" would be the ideal tonic to bring a smile to a gloomy long-faced countenance.

[JUst retired]

Feck me,I must visit this lovely place. With its road works, traffic schemes which make a hames of the place. It is divided in two halves, ours and theirs. Has many marches during the summer making it no go for some people, but as I said I must visit it. No, wait I live here.

[lurganblue]

Surely that article is a piss take? The shopping in the town is brutal. Completely dead. Now they have further made a balls of the roadworks and layout. The buildings are feckin falling apart and no scheme to put new shop signs up is gonna help that.

And 400 year anniversary? Anniversary of the plantation obviously

[Hereiam]

This has "Orange March" wrote all over it.

[caughtredhanded]

There's a few dacent pubs about Lurgan, the Courthouse and the Beehive. The Ashbourne was a lively spot for a disco a few years back. Locals are friendly enough.

Not a bad town but it can get interesting in the summer (like a lot of other places I must add)

[lolafrola]

Lurgan is a good old town if it's Bookies, Pubs and clubs you're after. As for shopping it's dead on it's feet thanks to Rushmere shopping centre and Tesco's.

[Wee Shea]

Lurgan is a good old town if it's Bookies, Pubs and clubs you're after. As for shopping it's dead on it's feet thanks to Rushmere shopping centre and Tesco's.

You say that like it would have been good for shopping before they came?

It is a dump.

[seafoid]

I find that whole north Armagh area to be really depressing.
Craigavon is the unionist city of the future that was aborted in the 1960s and the whole area shows it.   Portadown is probably the worst through.

[fitzroyalty]

When you have a Unionist dominated council that has more or less pissed over nationalists at any given opportunity it is no wonder it is so depressing...or for that matter a dissident republican hotspot. TBH the lack of shops in Lurgan can be partly attributed to the independent retailers, who lacked any foresight whatsoever and blocked any high-street names from coming to the town. That along with Rushmere means that any of the big names are either going to go there or Portadown before they go to Lurgan.

[charlieTully]

Ah Lurgan, what a town. The only town in the north that has a nationalist majority yet its town centre is a sea of red white and blue in the summer. the locals are to busy wrecking their own area, hi jacking their neighbours cars and trying to burn people on the train to Dublin to notice or care. Lurgan the home of buckie wine and the LVF. 

[nrico2006]

There's a few dacent pubs about Lurgan, the Courthouse and the Beehive. The Ashbourne was a lively spot for a disco a few years back. Locals are friendly enough.

Not a bad town but it can get interesting in the summer (like a lot of other places I must add)

There isn't really one decent place to go out for a night in Lurgan.  The Ashburn is a dive, never been in such a tiny and dark wee hole.  Charlie Tully got it right regarding the locals, you can barely get to the football pitch for training in the summer as they are constantly burning or rioting.  Instead of going up the town and ripping the flags down from their end, they would rather wreck their own patch and cause inconvenience for the local people.  I remember trying to get to the wake of a mother of a team mate of mine last year in Kilwilkie, the whole wake and funeral ended up being alot more stressful for the family than it should have with the antics that were going on around them. 

I have never saw a town with as many Chineses and take-aways as Lurgan, I actually struggle to say anything nice about the place (even the roads are terrible, going out towards McDonalds you would think you were rallying through pot-hole City), yet the town has a gem in the Park.  Lurgan Park which is unbelievable compared to what any other town in the Country has, only when you make use of it do you realise how lucky you are to live right beside it.  Then there is Oxford Island, Tannaghmore Gardens and Craigavon lakes on top of that, all natural beatyspots that people would only really appreciate if they lived anywhere else in Norther Ireland as most Towns have not even one spot as nice as these never mind 4.

[fitzroyalty]

There isn't really one decent place to go out for a night in Lurgan.  The Ashburn is a dive, never been in such a tiny and dark wee hole.  Charlie Tully got it right regarding the locals, you can barely get to the football pitch for training in the summer as they are constantly burning or rioting.  Instead of going up the town and ripping the flags down from their end, they would rather wreck their own patch and cause inconvenience for the local people.  I remember trying to get to the wake of a mother of a team mate of mine last year in Kilwilkie, the whole wake and funeral ended up being alot more stressful for the family than it should have with the antics that were going on around them. 

I have never saw a town with as many Chineses and take-aways as Lurgan, I actually struggle to say anything nice about the place (even the roads are terrible, going out towards McDonalds you would think you were rallying through pot-hole City), yet the town has a gem in the Park.  Lurgan Park which is unbelievable compared to what any other town in the Country has, only when you make use of it do you realise how lucky you are to live right beside it.  Then there is Oxford Island, Tannaghmore Gardens and Craigavon lakes on top of that, all natural beatyspots that people would only really appreciate if they lived anywhere else in Norther Ireland as most Towns have not even one spot as nice as these never mind 4.

The Cellar is very good, likewise the Courthouse, The Batcave and JP's Bar. The Burn nightclub isn't a dive, it was revamped in the last 2/3 years. Only good in (very) small doses though. There's four really nice bars for you and anyone from outside the town that I have brought for a night out has really enjoyed themselves.
...By "locals" what you really mean is a tiny minority in Kilwilke. Most people in North Lurgan deplore that shite. The town is stereotyped as being a shit hole but it has plenty going for it. Second biggest park in Ireland, one of the most visited tourist destinations in the North (Oxford Island), two 18-hole golf courses, thriving GAA scene

[The Gs Man]

and Captain Kennedy...

[seafoid]

How many other towns in the North were founded by the planters ?

I was reading "Ooot and aboot", the bizarre Ulster Scots agency glossy there on the net and was surprised to read that the Plantation was "an entirely peaceful affair". Just ignore the ethnic cleansing there to your left. 

[nrico2006]

Been in most nightclubs in the country, but for definite the worst I have been is the Ashburn.  Revamped or not, it is pitch black inside, has soft, spongy carpet everywhere and it is tiny.  It is also the worst place I have been to try and tackle.