Draperstown, Baile na Croise, Co. Derry

Baile na Croise · Co. Derry

A London livery company drew a town in the Sperrin foothills and the cattle still come on Saturdays.

Draperstown is a Plantation town that wears its origin on the sign over the door. After 1609 the expropriated lands of the Ballinascreen parish were carved up between two London livery companies - the Drapers got the west side of the crossroads, the Skinners got the east - and the place stayed two halves for two centuries before the Drapers came back, built a courthouse at the crossroads in 1812, and finally put their name on the village in 1818. Locals kept the older names anyway: The Cross, Moyheelan, Ballinascreen. They still use them.

What sits there now is a working town in the Sperrin foothills, with a wide central Diamond, a 1812 courthouse, a weekly cattle mart, and Slieve Gallion looking over the lot. Population just under two thousand at the last census. One sit-down restaurant of any ambition. A couple of old pubs on St Patrick's Street. And, twenty minutes east at Carntogher, a Gaelscoil and a community centre that have been quietly pulling Irish back into ordinary use since 1992.

Don't come for a checklist. Come for the angle: a town designed by a London cloth guild, transplanted into mountain country, that quietly stayed Irish in the corners. Walk up Slieve Gallion in the morning. Stand in the Diamond at noon while a Friday's worth of sheep is going through the ring up the road. Eat at Apparo on a Thursday. Drive twenty minutes to Davagh and stay out after dark. That is the trip.

Population

1,848 (NISRA 2021)

Walk score

Diamond to chapel in five minutes

Founded

Named 1818 by the Drapers' Company; courthouse at the cross since 1812

Coords

54.8014° N, 6.8511° W

01 / 09

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 Diamond

A planned town with a planned square.

The wide central Diamond was the Drapers' Company's idea of a market town - fairs, livestock, a courthouse opposite the main street since 1812. The square is still where the place gathers.

Stories & lore → 02 The mountain

Slieve Gallion to the north.

528 metres of the easternmost Sperrin, dominating the western shore of Lough Neagh. A transmitter mast on the lower summit, a road most of the way up, the kind of view that explains why the Drapers picked the spot.

Walks & outings → 03 The mart

Sheep on Friday, cattle on Saturday.

The livestock market on the edge of the village has been running on the same weekly rhythm for generations - sheep sales Friday, cattle Saturday. It is not for tourists. That is the point.

Stories & lore →

02 / 09

The pubs.

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

The Market Inn

Regulars, sport on the wall

Old town pub, St Patrick's Street

The Regan family pub on the main street - running since the 1940s, three generations of the same name behind the counter. A farmers' pub in the spirit-grocer era; identifies with whatever Ballinascreen team is playing. The kind of place where the same five seats are taken every Friday.

The Shepherd's Rest

Eight miles out, open fires, dogs welcome

Country pub & campsite, Sixtowns Road

Eight miles from the Diamond, up the Sixtowns Road into the foothills. A pub with cottages and a small farm attached. Doesn't do food on the regular - functions only - but the fire is real, the talk is the talk, and there is a campsite next door if the night runs on.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Apparo	Restaurant & boutique rooms, 18 St Patrick's Street	€€€	The town's sit-down dinner. Local produce, a proper wine list, four guest rooms upstairs. Closed Monday to Wednesday - open Thursday through Sunday and books up locally. If you are here for one good meal in the Sperrins, it is this one.
An Croí (at An Carn, Carntogher)	Coffee house & bistro	€€	Twenty minutes east at the An Carn cultural centre near Maghera. Run as part of Carntogher Community Association's Irish-language project. Soup, bread, lunch plates done with care, and Irish behind the counter if you want it. Worth the drive on a wet day.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Apparo	Boutique rooms above the restaurant	Four rooms over the restaurant on St Patrick's Street. Stay here, eat downstairs, walk home up the stairs. The whole logic of the trip in one address.
The Shepherd's Rest campsite	Campsite & caravan park, Sixtowns Road	Grass and gravel pitches with electric hook-ups, eight miles up into the hills behind the village. Hot showers, dogs welcome to a fault. Not luxury - it is the whole point.
Self-catering on the Sperrin scenic route	Cottages & farmhouses	Honest about it - the village itself is light on beds. The cottages out along the Glenelly Valley and the Sixtowns Road are where most visitors end up. Book through Mid Ulster's tourism listings; the names rotate.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

Named by a London cloth guild

The Drapers' town

After the 1609 Plantation of Ulster, the lands of Ballinascreen parish were divided between two London livery companies. The Drapers took everything west of the crossroads - Straw, Sixtowns, Moneyneena - and the Skinners took the east. The Drapers built a courthouse at the crossroads in 1812 and finally put the name Draperstown on the village in 1818, having previously used it for what is now Moneymore. The Post Office adopted it. The locals took longer, and in some corners haven't fully agreed yet.

Irish brought back, the slow way

Carn Tóchair

Drive twenty minutes east toward Maghera and you reach An Carn at the foot of Carntogher Mountain - the hub of Carntogher Community Association, founded in 1992 to push back against rural decline and to bring the Irish language back into ordinary use. The same year they opened Naíscoil Charn Tóchair, the first rural Irish-medium pre-school outside of the Gaeltacht; a primary school followed the year after. Today there is a shop, a coffee house, a youth club, a small theatre, and a community that speaks Irish because it wants to, not because a sign says it should.

The only Dark Sky Place in Northern Ireland

OM Dark Sky at Davagh

Twenty minutes south-west of Draperstown, Davagh Forest sits on 1,500 hectares of Sperrin foothill that used to be just trees and a forestry road. In 2020 Mid Ulster Council opened the OM Dark Sky Observatory and Visitor Centre on the edge of it, and the whole forest got International Dark Sky Place status - the only one in Northern Ireland. The mountain-bike trails run by day; the observatory runs by night; the Beaghmore Stone Circles sit in the same patch of bog, four thousand years older than either.

The mountain that watches the town

Slieve Gallion

528 metres on the eastern edge of the Sperrins, the first thing you see coming in from any direction. A small road runs most of the way up to a transmitter on the lower summit - you can drive nearly to the top and walk the last bit. From the cairn the view runs out over Lough Neagh on a clear day; on a bad day the cloud sits at four hundred metres and the town below disappears. The Drapers picked this spot because the land was good and the mountain was a landmark for miles. It still is.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Slieve Gallion summit The town's mountain. Drive up the Iniscarn Road as far as the lower car park, walk the last section to the transmitter and the summit cairn at 528m. Lough Neagh and most of mid-Ulster on a clear day. Doable in trainers in summer; not in cloud.

6 km return from the lower car parkdistance

2-3 hourstime

Davagh Forest trails Twenty minutes south-west. Properly built mountain-bike trails and walking loops in the forest below the Beaghmore Stone Circles and the OM Dark Sky Observatory. Northern Ireland's only Dark Sky Park - worth a return after dark if the forecast is right.

Various loops, markeddistance

1-3 hours per looptime

Glenelly Valley scenic drive The road through the heart of the Sperrins. Plumbridge at one end, Draperstown at the other, with Sawel Mountain (the range's highest, at 678m) overhead. Stone walls, sheep, very few coaches. Stop, walk a stretch, drive the next stretch.

About 25 km Plumbridge to Draperstowndistance

Half a day with stopstime

Sperrin Sculpture Trail Three large wooden sculptures by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo, placed across the Sperrins in 2024 - one in the Glenelly Valley, one on Mullaghcarn above Gortin, one in Davagh Forest. None of them are in Draperstown but Draperstown is the natural base for the lot. Moderate hill walks at each.

Three sites, drive betweendistance

Full daytime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Lambing in the foothills, walking festivals starting up, Slieve Gallion clear of snow most days. The Diamond is itself again.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Heather on the slopes, the longest light of the year, the sculpture trail at its best. Apparo books out at weekends - plan a Thursday.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The locals' season. Walking festivals in the Sperrins, the mart busy with sales, the light gone golden over the bog by four.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Slieve Gallion gets snow that closes the upper road. The Glenshane Pass over the Sperrins regularly shuts in weather. The pubs are warmer for it. Bring a torch for the Dark Sky Park.

◐ Mind yourself

08 / 09

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 trad sessions on a Tuesday

This is not Doolin. The pubs do regulars, sport, and talk. If you want music, drive to An Carn or down the road into Maghera.

The cattle mart unless you mean it

The weekly mart is a working sale yard, not a heritage attraction. Stand quietly, don't scratch your nose, and don't photograph buyers without asking.

Driving the back roads in something you can't reverse

The Sixtowns and Glenelly roads are single-track in places with passing bays and loose sheep. Hire something small or you'll meet a tractor at the worst moment.

Treating Draperstown as a one-hour stop

It is a base, not a sight. Stay a night, climb the mountain, eat at Apparo, drive to Davagh after dark. An hour gives you the Diamond and nothing else.

Getting there.

By car

Belfast to Draperstown is about 1h 15m via the M2 and the Glenshane Pass on the A6, then north on the B40. Derry is roughly 50 minutes the other way over the same pass.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus services run from Magherafelt and Maghera into Draperstown. Frequency is rural - check the day, not the hour.

By train

No train. Nearest stations are Antrim and Ballymena, both around 45 minutes by road.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 50 minutes by car. Belfast City (BHD) is 1h 15m. City of Derry (LDY) is around an hour.

Next on the tour

Co. Derry

Magherafelt

Twelve minutes south. The market town the bigger weekly shop happens in. No train, but everything else.

Co. Derry

Bellaghy

Twenty-five minutes east. Heaney country - his birthplace, his archive, his graveyard. The HomePlace exhibition is the right kind of pilgrimage.

Co. Derry

Moneymore

The Drapers' other town - they named it Draperstown first, then changed their minds. Fifteen minutes south-east. Springhill, almshouses, the same square logic.