Kilrea
Kilrea is a busy market town with a population of 1,513 boasting two challenging nine-hole golf courses. Kilrea is situated on the inland Bann Scenic route, 17 miles from Coleraine. The River Bann is perhaps at it’s most beautiful here in Kilrea with the little known but extremely picturesque waterfalls at Portna and Movanagher. Angling is made easier with boat hire facilities and 70 fishing stands in and around Kilrea.
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Kilrea – either Cill Reidh, the church on the plain or, more likely, Coill Reidh, the wooded plain – became a 17th Century Plantation town within the Mercer’s Company estate, and a charmingly picturesque one. Its busy life circulating around the elegant and flower-bedded market square, The Diamond. Two important buildings in The Diamond are The Mercer’s Arms, built in 1765 and The Town Hall, built in 1836.
Situated beside the Bann, as the river enters the Borough and on one of its most idyllic stretches, it is not just a major Irish centre for river and lake angling. It is also the base for the Portna Eel Fishery whose hatchery is one of the largest and most technologically advanced in Europe, keeping Lough Neagh stocked with a delicacy much in demand across Europe.
Here the woodland setting of the Bann is enhanced by two picturesque waterfalls, at Portna and Movanagher, itself the site of a plantation castle. Anglers can enjoy their sport in settings among the most beautiful to be found anywhere. Close by the sylvan-edged Kilrea Lake can be found a botanist’s delight, the very rare orchid, Irish Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes Stricta). In fact colourful flora abound generally around Kilrea and the town’s annual flower show is patronised by growers and enthusiasts from a wide area.
Worth a visit in Kilrea is the Claragh Heritage Centre, set in 3.5 acres of gardens. This unique privately owned collection represents almost all aspect of rural life. (Viewing by appointment only.)
A revered focal point for the cultural and community life of the town is a little walled enclosure beside the Presbyterian Church graveyard where for 200 years a Fairy Thorn Tree grew. Although the venerable tree, the centre-piece of the town’s annual summer folk festival, fell victim to a great storm in the closing days of the Twentieth Century, its site has not lost its popularity as a meeting place and generations to come will still be able to gather around its successor – grown from a seed of the original!