Armagh is the Orchard County because it grows apples, and it grows apples because the soil and the shelter and the rain conspire to suit them. The Bramley does particularly well here. So well, in fact, that the EU gave the Armagh Bramley protected status in 2012 — the only Irish apple with its own appellation.
You drive south from Lough Neagh and the fields start to change. Hedges thicken. Rows of squat, twisted trees appear behind them, pruned low and wide for picking. By the time you reach Loughgall or Richhill you're in it properly — orchard country, the way Champagne is wine country, on a smaller and damper scale.
Apples and the people who grow them
At its peak, the county had more than five thousand acres under commercial orchard. Now it's about half that, and the surviving growers either sell to the big juice and Bramley processors or — increasingly — they make cider.
Three producers worth visiting:
- Armagh Cider Company (Ballinteggart House, Portadown) — Philip and Helen Troughton, fourth-generation growers. They opened the cidery in 2005 and run tours by appointment. Their Carson's Crisp is the one to start on.
- Long Meadow Cider (near Portadown) — the McKeever family farm. Pat and Catherine started bottling in 2013 after years of just selling fruit. Their medium-dry is the everyday glass, the apple brandy is the thing to take home.
- Mac Ivors Cider (Greggs Hill, near Portadown) — Greg McNeice's family have been growing apples here for four generations. Stock-still in good supermarkets across Ireland now, but the farm gate is where you taste it best.
Call ahead. They're working farms, not visitor centres, and the wee window between flowering and picking isn't a good time to drop in unannounced.
Armagh city: two cathedrals, one small hill each
Armagh is the smallest city in Northern Ireland and the seat of two archbishops — Catholic and Church of Ireland, both called Patrick, both glaring at each other from neighbouring hills. The walk between them is about fifteen minutes through Georgian streets that haven't changed enough to mention.
St Patrick's (Church of Ireland)
The older of the two, on the hill where Patrick is said to have founded his church in 445. The current building is mostly a nineteenth-century overhaul of a medieval shell. Brian Boru, killed at Clontarf in 1014, is supposed to be buried in the grounds — there's a slab on the north side that claims so, and which historians treat with a polite cough.
St Patrick's (Catholic)
Across the way, finished in 1873 after sixty years of stop-start construction. Twin spires, mosaic-covered interior, the kind of building that makes you take your hat off without being told. Both cathedrals are free, both keep odd hours, both are worth half an hour each.
Navan Fort
Two miles west of the city, a grassy mound that used to be Emain Macha — the seat of the Kings of Ulster, the place where Cú Chulainn was trained, where the Red Branch knights gathered. Iron Age archaeology backs up most of the timeline, even if you take the heroes with a pinch of salt.
The visitor centre at the foot of the hill explains it all sensibly. The hill itself is open dawn to dusk, free, and from the top you can see the spires of both cathedrals back in Armagh. Stand there at half four on a winter afternoon when there's nobody about and you'll understand why people kept choosing this exact hill for a thousand years.
Where to stay
Two solid options in the city: Armagh City Hotel (modern, big, good for families) and the Charlemont Arms on English Street (smaller, central, the better breakfast). Out in the countryside, look for farm B&Bs around Richhill and Loughgall — there are a handful, and they put you in the orchards proper. The County Armagh accommodation guide has the full list.
Eating
The town's small but the food's serious:
- The Moody Boar (The Palace Demesne, Armagh) — proper local cooking in the old Archbishop's stable block. Pork from down the road, apples from the orchards over the wall.
- 4 Vicars (Vicars' Hill) — small, Georgian, ambitious. Book.
- Uluru Bistro (Market Street) — Australian-Irish, been there years, very good value at lunch.
Full list in the County Armagh restaurants guide.
The rest of the county
Slieve Gullion
The highest point in the county, 573 metres, with a passage tomb on top — the highest in Ireland. The summit walk takes about two and a half hours up and down on a forestry road, then a path. On a clear day you can see nine counties from the top, or so the saying goes, on most days you'll see four or five and be glad of it.
The Argory
National Trust house on the Blackwater near Moy. Built in 1824 and lived in by the same family until 1979. It still runs on its original acetylene gas lighting system — the only one of its kind in Ireland. Sunday afternoon kind of place, tea in the courtyard.
Gosford Forest Park
Outside Markethill. Walled garden, deer, Norman-revival castle (looks older than it is — it's 1820s). Good for an afternoon's walk if the orchards have you brimming with cider and you need to clear the head.
When to come
- Late April to early May — the blossom. The whole point of coming, if you can only come once.
- September — the Armagh Food & Cider Festival, and the start of picking. You can sometimes pick at the gates of the smaller orchards if you ring ahead.
- Other times — quieter, but the cathedrals and Navan are still there, and the cider's still in the bottle.
Getting there
Armagh sits on the M1 corridor, forty minutes from Belfast and an hour and twenty from Dublin. The city is walkable, the orchards are not. You'll want a car, and the roads between Loughgall, Richhill, Portadown and Markethill are quiet enough that you can take them slowly. Which is the point.