Cullaville or Culloville ( or McCulloch's ville or town is a small

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

and

townland A townland (; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a traditional small land division used in Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of medieval Gaelic origin, predating the Norman invasion, and mo ...

near Crossmaglen in

County Armagh County Armagh ( ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and adjoins the southern shore of Lough Neagh. It borders t ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It is the southernmost settlement in the county and one of the southernmost in Northern Ireland, straddling the

Irish border Irish commonly refers to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the island and the sovereign state ***Erse (disambiguatio ...

. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 400 people. The village is on a busy crossroads on the main

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

to Castleblaney road (the A37 in Northern Ireland and N53 in the Republic); three of the roads lead across the border and the fourth leads to Crossmaglen.

History

Events

On 29 March 1922, during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

(IRA) volunteers ambushed and shot dead two

Royal Irish Constabulary The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom. A sep ...

men (Patrick Earley and James Harper) at Ballinacarry Bridge, Cullaville. Cullaville, along with the rest of South Armagh, would have been transferred to the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

had the recommendations of the

Irish Boundary Commission The Irish Boundary Commission () met in 1924–25 to decide on the precise delineation of Republic of Ireland – United Kingdom border, the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the I ...

been enacted in 1925. On 2 September 1942, (the day after the hanging of IRA man Tom Williams) and during the Northern Campaign of the IRA, an attack was scheduled to take place against a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

barracks in Crossmaglen. Twenty IRA volunteers were led by Patrick Demody and

Charlie Kerins Charlie Kerins (; 23 January 1918 – 1 December 1944) was a physical force Irish Republican, and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Kerins was one of six IRA men who were executed by the Irish State between September 1940 and D ...

in a commandeered lorry and accompanying car. A passing

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...

(RUC) patrol, however, noticed the IRA convoy as it moved through Cullaville and in the ensuing gun battle, one IRA man was injured along with one RUC member. Conflicting accounts exist of the outcome, one claiming that the IRA unit surrendered and was released, all survivors being allowed to return to Dublin; another claiming that it was the RUC men (there were only two of them) who surrendered to the IRA and were released.

Sport

The village is home to Culloville Blues Gaelic Athletic Club. Tracing its origins to a club founded in 1888, it is one of the oldest clubs in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

.Cullaville page
on Armagh GAA website

Transport

The former station, Culloville railway station and current post office are south of the River Fane, in County Monaghan. The station was located on the former Great Northern Railway's Irish North West line from

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...

, which opened in June 1858 but lost its passenger service in 1957, and closed completely in 1959. Only the station masters house, up platform and brick built signal cabin base remains at Culloville, the rest of the station buildings have since been demolished.

References

Sources

NI Neighbourhood Information System