Belleeks, Béal Leice, Co. Armagh

Béal Leice · Co. Armagh

A planned 1790s village in the south Armagh hills, two pubs and a public common. Not the Fermanagh pottery one.

First thing - Belleeks is not Belleek. The pottery place is in Fermanagh, eighty miles west, makes the white china your aunt keeps in the good cabinet. This Belleeks, with the s, is a small Catholic village on the A25, sitting between Camlough to the east and Newtownhamilton to the west, about seven miles from Newry. The Irish is Béal Leice, the ford-mouth of the flagstone. The Armagh people will correct you on the difference before you have finished the question.

An Earl of Gosford laid the village out in the 1790s on the site of an old Tudor garrison, and the street plan has barely moved since. It is south Armagh, so you carry the weight of that - low green hills, small fields, the chapel above the houses, the GAA club running the social calendar. Through the 1800s this was a proper little market centre: people from the outlying townlands brought butter and cheese here to be sold on to Belfast and beyond, and Sir Archibald Acheson held a patent for four fairs a year, the February one surviving until the 1850s.

Do not come expecting a day out. There are two pubs, a shop, a part-time factory and a public common, and that is the village. If you are driving the A25 between Newry and Armagh you will be through it inside a minute. Slow down anyway. There is a story in the ground here, even if there is no coffee shop to read it in.

Population

375 (2011 census)

Founded

Planned village laid out in the 1790s by an Earl of Gosford

Coords

54.16° N, 6.55° W

01 / 07

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The name

Béal Leice - the ford-mouth of the flagstone.

First thing to clear up: this is not Belleek, the pottery village in Fermanagh that makes the white china. That one is singular, eighty miles west, with the visitor centre and the coach tours. This is Belleeks, with the s, in south Armagh. Same Irish root, two different places. The locals are tired of explaining it.

Stories & lore → 02 The village

A planned settlement on the A25, barely 375 people.

An Earl of Gosford laid the village out in the 1790s on the site of an old Tudor garrison. Saint Laurence O'Toole's chapel sits above the houses, the GAA club runs the calendar, and there is a public common in the centre. Two pubs, a shop, and not much else - which is the point.

Walks & outings →

02 / 07

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The village pubs

South Armagh locals' bars

Two local pubs

Belleeks has two public houses in the village centre, near the common. They are local bars for a village of a few hundred, not destinations - a pint, the racing, the talk. Hours are their own business; if you want anything more than that, Newry is twenty minutes east. Worth a stop only if you are passing and want to drink where the village actually drinks.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Belleeks vs Belleek

Not the pottery one

Belleek - singular, no s - is the village in Fermanagh that makes the bone china. It sits on the Erne, has a visitor centre, and gets coach tours. Belleeks, with the s, is this place: a planned village on a back road in south Armagh, a few hundred people, no pottery, no visitor centre, no tour buses. They share the Irish root Béal Leice, the ford-mouth of the flagstone, and almost nothing else. Now you know, and you can stop the locals having to tell you.

Planned in the 1790s

Gosford's village

What stands today is largely the work of an Earl of Gosford, who in the 1790s laid out a planned village on the site of an old Tudor garrison. That garrison had been besieged and taken during the rebellion of the Great O'Neill two centuries before; the land around it was held in 1641 by Hugh Boy O'Hanlon, one of the few Catholic gentry to keep a substantial estate in County Armagh after the Plantation. To the east of the village the Deerpark ran behind impressive 18th-century walls, parts of which still stand.

The chapel above the houses

Saint Laurence O'Toole's

Saint Laurence O'Toole's Roman Catholic Church sits in a prominent spot above the village - the building the place orients itself around. A Church of Ireland church and an Orange Hall stand a little to the north, out toward Whitecross. The GAA club takes the same patron, Cumann Lorcáin Uí Thuathail, Laurence O'Toole's, fielding men's and ladies' football, underage teams and Scor in the Armagh competitions. In a village this size the club and the chapel between them are most of the social life there is.

A quarter gone in ten years

After the Famine

The census returns either side of the Great Famine tell the south Armagh story plainly. Between 1841 and 1851 the village and its surrounding townlands lost more than a quarter of their people to death and emigration. The butter-and-cheese market that had made Belleeks a commercial centre for the district faded with them. The four annual fairs Acheson had been granted dwindled to one, and that last February fair was gone by the 1850s. The village that survived is the quiet one you see now.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Around the village Up past the public common to Saint Laurence O'Toole's on its rise above the houses, and back. The proportions of the 1790s planned village are still legible in the street. It takes longer than twenty minutes if anyone stops to talk to you, which in south Armagh they will.

1 kmdistance

20 mintime

The Deerpark wall East of the village the old Deerpark ran behind 18th-century walls, sections of which survive along the roadside. There is no signage and no interpretation - it is simply there in the hedge if you know to look for it. Boots and a slow eye.

Short walk eastdistance

30 mintime

Slieve Gullion forest drive South-east toward Newry, a one-way forest road climbs round the side of Slieve Gullion with viewpoints over the Ring of Gullion. The summit hike to the passage tomb and the lough starts from the upper car park and takes a couple of hours. This is the proper outing of the area, and Belleeks is a quiet base for it.

13 km loopdistance

45 min drivingtime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The south Armagh hills come green slowly. Lambs in the small fields, gorse on the rises, the light stretching out in the evenings.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings and GAA in full swing - the club is the village calendar. Slieve Gullion on the doorstep for the proper walking.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Best light of the year over the Ring of Gullion. Quiet roads, harvest in the fields, nobody about.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and weather off the hills. The roads are small and twisty - fine, but go carefully if it turns icy. Not a lot open.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting the Fermanagh Belleek

No pottery, no visitor centre, no coach tours. If you came for the china you are eighty miles and a county out. This Belleeks is a working village, not an attraction.

Looking for a day's worth of things to do

It is a village of 375 with two pubs, a shop and a common. That is the whole of it. Use it as a quiet stop on the way to Slieve Gullion or Newry, not a destination in itself.

Asking about the Troubles in the pub

This is south Armagh, and the people in the bar lived through it. They are entitled not to perform it for a passing visitor. If it comes up, listen. Do not lead with it.

Getting there.

By car

On the A25 between Camlough (east) and Newtownhamilton (west), about 7 miles from Newry and 2 miles south of Whitecross. From Armagh city it is roughly 30 minutes; from Dundalk, about half an hour over the border.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus services run the A25 corridor between Newry and the south Armagh villages, but they are sparse and some stops are on request. Check the timetable before you rely on it - this is rural Northern Ireland and the car is the realistic option.

By train

Nearest station is Newry (about 20 minutes east) on the Belfast-Dublin line. From there it is bus or taxi the rest of the way.

Next on the tour

Co. Armagh

Newtownhamilton

The bigger neighbour up the A25, four miles west. A planted market town high in the Fews, laid out around a square in 1770.

Co. Armagh

Camlough

East along the A25 toward Newry. The lake and the mountain behind it, on the edge of the Ring of Gullion.

Co. Armagh

Markethill

North toward Armagh - the other Gosford village, with Gosford Castle, the demesne and the forest park.