Loughbrickland

Loughbrickland ; from Irish: Loch Bricleann) is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland, south of Banbridge on the main Belfast to Dublin road. In the 2011 Census it had a population of 693. Loughbrickland is within the Banbridge District.

Loughbrickland may have been the site where the Three Collas fought the Battle of Achadh Leithdheirg in 331 AD, defeating the forces of Fergus Foga, king of Ulster. The victors killed Fergus and burned Emain Macha, the famous palace of the Ultonian kings, to the ground. The sovereignty of Ulster thus passed from the race of Ir to the race of Heremon. John O'Mahony the Gaelic scholar states that the battle site was commemorated by "a huge Carn of loose stones near Loughbrickland". Samuel Lewis in his "Topographical dictionary of Ireland - County Down" states - "At Drummillar is a vast cairn of loose stones, 60 feet high and 226 feet in circumference." This Carn, known as Carn Cochy in the Annals of the Four Masters, stood seventy feet high but appears to have been destroyed when the Scarva to Banbridge railway line was constructed in 1859. What appears to be the Carn can be seen on the image of a 1778 map as a huge pile of stones to the left of the Loughbrickland to Scarva Road, about 2 miles outside Loughbrickland.

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