Aghadowey, Achadh Dubhthaigh, Co. Derry

Achadh Dubhthaigh · Co. Derry

A crossroads on the A29 that sent half a congregation to New Hampshire in 1718.

Aghadowey is not really a village so much as a crossroads with a long memory. The A29 from Coleraine to Garvagh runs through it, the Agivey River runs under it, and the Old Presbyterian Church sits a little back from the road in the townland of Ballywillan with a graveyard full of names that turn up later in New England directories.

The big fact here is 1718. Rev James McGregor, the third minister of Aghadowey, led around a hundred Ulster-Scots families across the Atlantic that summer. They wintered badly, were granted a hundred square miles of New England woodland, and in 1722 renamed the settlement Londonderry, New Hampshire. The town that grew out of it spawned Manchester, Derry, Windham - a whole quadrant of New Hampshire descends, by paperwork, from this graveyard. Nutfield Genealogy reunions still come here. The locals are quietly used to American accents asking after gravestones.

The other reason to stop is the Brown Trout. The O'Hara family have been running an inn on this stretch of road for four generations, and in 1973 they cut a nine-hole golf course out of the wooded ground behind the building - the first hotel in Northern Ireland to do so. It is still the easiest place to eat dinner within five miles, and the salmon on the menu was likely in the river behind the kitchen the day before.

Population

Small rural village (Aghadowey ward, NISRA 2021)

Walk score

Crossroads, church, inn - five minutes end to end

Founded

Presbyterian congregation since 1655

Coords

55.0500° N, 6.6500° W

01 / 08

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 congregation

One of the oldest Presbyterian churches in Ireland.

Aghadowey Old Presbyterian Church has been on the same patch since 1655 - older than nearly every Presbyterian congregation west of the Bann. The current building seats a thousand because the linen money in the 1700s was real.

Stories & lore → 02 The emigration

Londonderry, New Hampshire starts here.

In 1718 the minister, Rev James McGregor, packed up most of his congregation and sailed to Boston. They settled at Nutfield and renamed it Londonderry in 1722. The blue plaque is on the church wall.

Stories & lore → 03 The river

Where the Agivey meets the Bann.

Salmon and sea trout water. The Agivey runs down off the hills and into the Lower Bann at the edge of the parish. Anglers know the names of the pools the way locals know the names of the fields.

Walks & outings →

02 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Brown Trout Inn restaurant	Country inn restaurant	€€	Same kitchen serving the bar and the dining room. Local meat, local fish, the chowder is the chowder you want after a wet morning on the Bann. Open to non-residents. Book on a Sunday.

03 / 08

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Brown Trout Golf & Country Inn	Country inn (3-star)	Family-run by the O'Haras for four generations. Building dates from 1750; rooms in the main inn and a riverside annex. Nine-hole golf course on site, designed by William Patrick O'Hara Sr. and opened in 1973 - Northern Ireland's first golf hotel. Fishing, horse riding, ten minutes to the Causeway Coast.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

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

Rev James McGregor, 1701-1718

The Moses of the Scots-Irish

McGregor came to Aghadowey as minister in 1701 - a fluent Irish speaker, a veteran of the Siege of Derry, allowed by the Synod from 1710 to preach in Irish. By 1718 the rents had gone up, the harvests had gone bad, and the Test Act was making Presbyterian life small. He led most of his congregation onto five ships, landed in Boston on 4 August 1718, and the following spring settled at a place called Nutfield. He stayed minister there until his death in 1729. In 1722 the town was renamed Londonderry. The blue plaque on the church wall in Aghadowey was unveiled in 2014.

1655 and counting

The Old Meeting House

Aghadowey Old Presbyterian Church traces its congregation to 1655, which puts it among the oldest in Ireland and the oldest west of the Bann. The present building is large enough to seat a thousand - a clue to how much linen money was flowing through this parish in the 1700s before McGregor's people left and the rest stayed. The succession list of ministers runs unbroken from then to now. The kirk session minutes survive. Genealogists arrive with notebooks.

An inn, then a golf course, then a hotel

The Brown Trout

The building dates from 1750 - an old coaching inn on the road between Coleraine and the inland market towns. The O'Hara family took it over and have run it for four generations. In 1973 William Patrick O'Hara Sr. laid out a nine-hole parkland course in the wooded ground behind the inn, the first hotel in Northern Ireland to do so. The Causeway Coast is twenty minutes away. Most of their guests are here for that, and use the inn as a quieter base than Portrush.

Salmon country

The Agivey and the Bann

The Agivey River runs off the hills west of the village and meets the Lower Bann at the edge of the parish. Salmon and sea trout. The Agivey Anglers' Association beat is well-known to fly-fishers who travel for it; the Bann itself is one of the great salmon rivers of these islands. The river decides the week. If the water is right, the inn will be full of waders by the back door.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

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

Bann river bank from the Agivey bridge Park at the Agivey bridge on the back road east of the village and walk down to the Lower Bann. Salmon water on your right, flat farmland on your left. Quiet most days; quietly busy on a salmon week.

3-5 km, choose your turnarounddistance

1 hourtime

Drive to Mountsandel and back Aghadowey to Coleraine is fifteen minutes. Park at Mountsandel Wood and walk to the Mesolithic site where the first known inhabitants of Ireland camped about 7000 BC. Back via the Cutts and tea at Hezlett House if you've timed it.

20 km loop by cardistance

Half a daytime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The fishing season is opening, the inn is quiet, the church graveyard is full of crocuses. Nothing happens. That is the point.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The Causeway Coast is busy and Aghadowey isn't. Stay here and drive twenty minutes to the beach. Long evenings on the Bann.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Salmon run finishing. American visitors arriving for the harvest and the McGregor pilgrimage. Light low on the river.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The inn stays open; not much else does. Come for the fire and the silence, not for the village.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Looking for a high street

There isn't one. Aghadowey is a crossroads, a church, an inn, and a river. If you want shops, Garvagh is ten minutes south and Coleraine is fifteen minutes north.

Showing up at the church on a weekday and expecting it open

It's a working congregation, not a museum. The blue plaque is outside; the graveyard is accessible; for the inside, come to a service or ring ahead.

Treating this as a day trip on its own

It isn't one. Pair it with the Causeway Coast, or a day on the Bann, or a McGregor-family heritage stop. As a base for the area it works; as a destination in itself it will disappoint.