Gulladuff, An Guala Dhubh, Co. Derry

An Guala Dhubh · Co. Derry

A south Derry crossroads where the GAA pitch is the centre of the map.

Gulladuff is a crossroads village between Bellaghy and Maghera with a chapel, a GAA pitch, a shop and one bar - and not much else laid on for the passing visitor. It is not pretending otherwise. The name in Irish is An Guala Dhubh - "the black shoulder" - for the dark rise of land the village sits on. Administratively it is in the Maghera civil parish; for the Catholic half of the parish it is Lavey, and that is the name that carries the weight here. Strongly Catholic, strongly Irish-leaning, strongly GAA. That is the centre of gravity.

The pitch in the townland is the home ground of Erin's Own GAC Lavey, who reorganised in 1933 and moved their ground here at that point. In 2010 the club opened a £2.5m indoor sports complex with the Termoneeny Community Association - a 60m by 40m 3G arena, a gym, an aerobics hall, the lot. The indoor arena was renamed the Colm McGurk Arena in 2024 after the architect who designed it. For a village this size it is an outsized piece of infrastructure, and on a Sunday in championship season the back roads fill up with cars from every parish in the county.

The reason to come through is usually this: you are heading to the Seamus Heaney HomePlace at Bellaghy and you want the back-road version of the route. Park up at St Mary's chapel, walk a loop of the drumlin lanes, see Lough Beg in the middle distance, and understand a quarter of Heaney's collected poems better than you did an hour ago. That is the trip. There is the Cosy Corner Bar on the Gulladuff Road if you want a pint at the end of it. Do not expect a pub crawl.

Population

405 (2001 census); ~318 in 1991

Pubs

1and counting

Walk score

A crossroads, a chapel, a pitch

Founded

Crossroads settlement in Maghera civil parish; Lavey GAC pitch arrived 1933

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 pitch

Lavey's home ground sits in Gulladuff townland.

Erin's Own GAC Lavey reorganised in 1933 and moved their pitch here. The £2.5m Termoneeny community sports complex opened alongside it in 2010. On match days the village doubles.

Stories & lore → 02 Heaney country

Lough Beg is over the next field.

Bellaghy is five minutes south-east, the Seamus Heaney HomePlace inside it. Half of Heaney's poetry sits within a ten-mile radius of here. The drumlins, the rushes, the low light - they are his.

Stories & lore → 03 The land

Drumlin farmland, hedge by hedge.

Gentle little hills, narrow roads, dairy and beef. The name means "the black shoulder" - the dark rise behind the chapel. Slow it down on the back lanes; a tractor is usually round the next bend.

Getting there →

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 Cosy Corner Bar

The one pub, local first

Village bar, 68 Gulladuff Road

The bar at the crossroads, on the Gulladuff Road. A small local rather than a destination - no cask ale, no gastro menu, just the village pub where the Lavey crowd ends up after a match. If you want a quiet pint after walking the drumlin lanes, this is the only one in the village, and that is the whole point of it.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

How a parish kept a club

Erin's Own at Gulladuff

The club now called Erin's Own GAC Lavey runs through Gulladuff. It began in 1926 as Knockloughrim Erin's Own, named by a Mayo man, Liam O'Connor, who was teaching in the parish; when O'Connor emigrated to America in 1928 the club folded, and it was reorganised in 1933 under Mick Crilly as Erin's Own GAC Lavey, with the pitch moved to the townland of Gulladuff. On St Patrick's Day 1991 the club won the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship, beating Salthill of Galway in the final. Five of that panel - Henry Downey, Johnny McGurk, Tony Scullion, Enda Gormley and Séamus Downey among them - went on to win Ulster and the All-Ireland with Derry in 1993, Downey lifting Sam as captain. The pitch where that team trained is still here, the 2010 community complex beside it.

Lough Beg, Anahorish, the back fields

Heaney's ten-mile radius

Heaney scholars reckon over half of his collected poems are set within ten miles of his Mossbawn birthplace near Bellaghy. Gulladuff is inside that ring. The drumlins he called the low hills, Lough Beg with Church Island visible from the road, Anahorish - all within a short drive. The HomePlace museum is in Bellaghy, but the landscape that made the poems is out here in the fields between, and Gulladuff is one of the quiet crossroads you pass through to read it on foot.

The Troubles came to the crossroads

John Davey, 1989

In February 1989 John Davey, a Sinn Féin councillor on Magherafelt District Council, was shot dead by the Ulster Volunteer Force as he returned to his home in Gulladuff. It is the kind of fact a small place carries quietly rather than advertises, but it is part of why this corner of south Derry feels the way it does, and worth knowing if you are reading the parish rather than just driving through it.

Why the roads bend the way they do

The drumlin farmland

This part of south Derry is drumlin country - low rounded hills left behind by the last ice age, each one a separate small farm with a separate small field system. The roads go around the drumlins rather than over them, which is why a five-mile journey takes fifteen minutes and you cannot see what is coming. Dairy and beef on the lower ground, rushy fields in the hollows. The land has shaped how the parish is laid out and how people know each other across it.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Drumlin lanes loop from the chapel Park at St Mary's chapel and walk the back roads out toward the Bellaghy side. There is no waymarked trail - this is road walking on quiet lanes between drumlins, with Lough Beg in the middle distance on a clear day. Hedge by hedge, this is the landscape behind a good share of Heaney's poems. Walk facing oncoming traffic; a tractor is usually round the next bend.

4-6 km, your own routedistance

1-1.5 hourstime

Out to Bellaghy and Lough Beg Five minutes south-east by car to the Seamus Heaney HomePlace, then on to the shore of Lough Beg with Church Island and its spire across the water. The HomePlace is the indoor half of the visit; the lough shore is the outdoor half. Do both and the poems make more sense.

~5 km one waydistance

Drive, then walktime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The drumlins green up, the light over Lough Beg is at its best, and the GAA season is getting going. The quiet, pretty version of south Derry.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings for the back-lane walks, championship football at the Lavey pitch, and the HomePlace at Bellaghy a few minutes away. The natural time to come.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Low autumn light on the rushy fields is the Heaney palette exactly. Club championship reaches its business end and the village fills on match Sundays.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, muddy lanes and not much open beyond the shop and the bar. The chapel and the pitch keep going; little else does. Bring boots or come another month.

◐ 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 a tourist village

Gulladuff is a working crossroads parish, not a visitor destination. One bar, a shop, a chapel, a pitch. The draw is the landscape and the GAA story, not amenities. Scale your expectations to a village of four hundred people and it delivers; arrive expecting Bellaghy's HomePlace polish and you will be looking for something that is not here.

The pitch on a quiet weekday

The Lavey ground and the Colm McGurk Arena are the heart of the place, but on a midweek afternoon with nothing on they are just a pitch and a shed. Come on a championship Sunday or do not make a special trip for them - the magic is the crowd, not the concrete.

Getting there.

By car

Magherafelt is about 8 km south. Maghera is roughly 6 km north-west. Bellaghy is about 5 km south-east. From Belfast it is around 50 minutes on the M2, off at Toomebridge and up through Bellaghy. Post town is Magherafelt; postcode BT45.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus services run the Magherafelt-Maghera corridor and pass through. It is a small village stop, not a hub - check live Translink timetables before you rely on it, and consider Magherafelt as your transport anchor.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 45 minutes by car. City of Derry (LDY) is around an hour and ten.

Next on the tour

Co. Derry

Bellaghy

Five minutes south-east. The Seamus Heaney HomePlace and the village he wrote out of, with the Bawn and the churchyard where he is buried. The reason most people are passing through this corner of Derry.

Co. Derry

Maghera

About 6 km north-west. The market town at the foot of the Carntogher hills, with a ruined old church worth ten minutes. The bigger neighbour for shopping and services.

Co. Derry

Magherafelt

About 8 km south. The proper town of south Derry - shops, banks, the Bridewell. Where Gulladuff goes to do business and catch a bus.