The Loup
An Lúb

The Mid Ulster
STOP 03 / 03

An Lúb · Co. Derry

A bend in the road on the Lough Neagh shore, and one of the great south Derry football clubs.

The Loup is one of those places that doesn't quite resolve into a village from the road. A church, a few houses around the bend, a GAA pitch behind a hedge — and you've driven through it before you've registered you were in it. It sits on the south Derry plain between Magherafelt and the western shore of Lough Neagh, and the next neighbours up the road are Ballyronan, Moneymore and Coagh.

What the place is really known for is football. St. Patrick's GAC Loup was formed in 1933 and won the Derry Senior Football Championship three years later. Then nothing — for 67 years. In 2003, under Malachy O'Rourke, the same little parish won the Derry final, kept going, and beat Bryansford, Crossmaglen and St Gall's to lift the Ulster Senior Club Championship at the first ever time of asking. They did it again in Derry in 2009. For a village this size, this is not a normal sentence to be able to write.

There's no pub strip, no restaurant trail, no harbour walk to recommend. The village is where the people who play for the Loup live. The lough is for Ballyronan. The shops are for Magherafelt. Come because the football's on, or don't come at all — but the Loup is one of those small Irish places where the parish's name is on a cup that lives in Croke Park's record book, and that is the whole story.

Population

774 (2021 census)

Walk score

A handful of houses, a church, a GAA pitch

Coords

54.7° N, 6.55° W

01 / 03

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

An Lúb — the loop in the road.

The village takes its name from a bend in the road on the way down to the Lough Neagh shore. That is, more or less, the village.

Stories & lore → 02 The lough

Western shore of Lough Neagh.

The biggest lake in the British Isles sits a couple of fields east. The pier at Ballyronan is the place to actually see it.

Stories & lore → 03 The football

Kings of Ulster, 2003.

St. Patrick's GAC Loup — a club from a village of fewer than 800 people — won the Ulster Senior Club Football Championship at their first ever attempt.

Stories & lore →

02 / 03

Stories & lore.

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

The bend in the road

An Lúb

The name is the Irish an Lúb — the loop, or the bend. The village sits at a curve on the road running down from the Magherafelt direction toward the Lough Neagh shore. That's where the name comes from, and that's the village. There is no older castle, no monastery, no market square doing the heavy lifting. The bend in the road is the thing.

St. Patrick's GAC Loup, Ulster champions

The class of 2003

St. Patrick's GAC Loup was founded in 1933 and won the Derry Senior Football Championship in 1936. Then the club waited 67 years for a second one. In 2003, under manager Malachy O'Rourke, the Loup won Derry again, then beat Bryansford, Crossmaglen and St Gall's to take the Ulster Senior Club Championship at their first attempt. A village of fewer than 800 people, against clubs from towns ten and twenty times the size. They won Derry again in 2009. The pitch is on the far side of the village from the lough — drive past on a winter Sunday and you'll see what 'the club is the parish' actually looks like.

Lough Neagh from the back door

The western shore

Lough Neagh is the largest lake in the British Isles — 150 square miles of water that you can drive around in a long afternoon and still not really see all at once. The Loup sits on the western shore, but the village itself doesn't open onto the water. For that, you drive five minutes east to Ballyronan, which has the marina, the pier and the picnic benches. The Loup is the place behind the shore.

Getting there.

By car

From Magherafelt take the B18/Ballyronan road east; the Loup is about ten minutes out, on the bend before you reach Ballyronan. Belfast is roughly 50 minutes via the M2 and Toomebridge.

By bus

Translink routes serve Magherafelt; from there it's a short local journey by car or taxi. No direct express service.