Annaclone, Eanach Cluana, Co. Down

Eanach Cluana · Co. Down

A drumlin parish between Banbridge and Rathfriland, on the edge of the Bronte country.

Annaclone is a small village and a wider civil parish in the drumlin country south-east of Banbridge. The village itself - the chapel, the primary school, the GAA pitch and a clutch of houses around Monteith Road - held 190 people at the last census. The parish around it stretches further, taking in the townlands the farms sit on and the back lanes that climb gently toward Rathfriland. The name is Eanach Cluana - the marsh of the meadows - and the ground tells you why.

The story everybody comes for is the Bronte one, and it is half-true here. Patrick Bronte - father of Charlotte, Emily and Anne - was born on St Patrick's Day 1777 in a two-roomed cottage at Emdale, on the southern edge of Annaclone. The cottage itself sits across the parish line in Drumballyroney, which is the technical point local historians have argued for two hundred years, but the road past it is signed from Annaclone, the school at Glascar Hill where Patrick had his first teaching post in his teens is the next ridge over, and the country he grew up walking through is this country. The Bronte Homeland Interpretative Centre is at Drumballyroney church a couple of miles south; Rathfriland gets the headline, but the Annaclone end is the country.

The other thing that holds the parish together is Annaclone GAC - Naomh Ann, St Ann - founded in 1896, playing intermediate football in the Down championship out of Gaelic Park. South Down is strong GAA country, parish rivalries are old and sharp, and a Sunday afternoon with a championship match on means the village is at the pitch and nowhere else. The chapel does Saturday vigil and Sunday morning. The school is on Monteith Road. That is the shape of the place.

Don't come for a day out - there isn't one to be had in the village itself. Come on the way somewhere else. Pair half an hour here with the Bronte drive out of Rathfriland, lunch in Banbridge on the Cut, and on south to Newry or the Mournes. Annaclone is a quiet place to know the name of, especially if you have read Jane Eyre. The rest is in the country around it.

Population

190 (2021 census, village only)

Walk score

A crossroads, a chapel, a school, a GAA pitch - five minutes end to end

Coords

54.2861° N, 6.2350° W

01 / 05

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 Brontes, almost

Patrick Bronte was born just down the road.

Emdale, the two-roomed cottage where Patrick Bronte was born on St Patrick's Day 1777, sits on the southern edge of Annaclone in the townland-edge country that the parish boundary with Drumballyroney runs through. The Bronte Homeland Drive starts at Drumballyroney church a couple of miles south; the road past the birthplace is signed from Annaclone.

Stories & lore → 02 Naomh Ann

A GAA club older than the village hall.

Annaclone GAC - Naomh Ann, St Ann - was founded in 1896 and has been the centre of the parish's Sunday afternoons ever since. Intermediate football in the Down championship, home games at Gaelic Park up the hill from the chapel.

Stories & lore → 03 The drumlin road

Between Banbridge and Rathfriland.

Annaclone sits in rolling drumlin country seven kilometres south-east of Banbridge, on the back roads that climb gently south toward Rathfriland and the Bronte parishes. St Colman's chapel and primary school on Monteith Road are the village; the rest is small farms.

Getting there →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Born on the edge of the parish, taught down the road

Patrick Bronte at Emdale

Patrick Brunty - later anglicised at Cambridge to Bronte - was born on 17 March 1777 in a two-roomed thatched cabin at Emdale, on the southern edge of Annaclone. The eldest of ten children of Hugh Brunty, a Boyne-valley man working the linen trade in south Down, and Eleanor McClory of Drumballyroney, Patrick grew up walking the lanes between Annaclone, Drumballyroney and Glascar. The Emdale cottage sits across the parish line in Drumballyroney - a distinction that nineteenth-century antiquarians spent decades correcting - but the country is shared and the road past the birthplace is signed from Annaclone. The cottage is now a protected ruin; a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the site in 1956. You can see it from the road; you cannot go in.

Head teacher in his teens, dismissed for a romance with a pupil

Glascar Hill, his first school

Patrick had his first teaching post at Glascar Hill Presbyterian Church school, on the ridge above Annaclone toward Loughbrickland. He was made head teacher there while still in his teens - a measure of how unusual a scholar he was - and was eventually dismissed, the local story goes, for forming a romantic attachment with a pupil. He moved on to teach at the Drumballyroney parish school beside the church, was taken up by the Rev. Thomas Tighe - evangelical rector of Drumballyroney, sometime fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge - and through Tighe's influence won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1802. He sailed at twenty-five and never came home. The schoolhouse on Glascar Hill that replaced the building he taught in dates from 1844; the original is gone.

Annaclone GAC, since 1896

Naomh Ann

Annaclone Gaelic Athletic Club - Naomh Ann, St Ann - was founded in 1896, two years after the Down county board itself was formed. The club plays intermediate football in the Down championship, fielding teams through the underage grades up to senior reserve, and has been the centre of parish life since long before the chapel got electricity. The home ground is Gaelic Park, up the hill from the village. The club has had its decades of strength and its decades of rebuilding, like every parish club in south Down; the last county intermediate honours were in 2008. The parish rivalries - Annaclone, Aghaderg, Tullylish, Saval - are old, sharp, and survive any change of personnel on the pitch.

Christianity here since around 510 AD

St Colman's, the parish patron

The Catholic parish of Annaclone - paired with neighbouring Magherally - takes St Colman as its patron, and traces a Christian presence in the townlands back to roughly 510 AD, when Colman of Dromore established his monastic seat a few miles north. The present St Colman's church on Monteith Road is a nineteenth-century building; the school beside it - St Colman's Primary School and All Saints' Nursery - has had a school on the site since 1866, with the current bright low building opened in 1971. The school takes the entire parish, a roughly three-mile radius of small farms and back lanes. About 190 children attend. That is most of the parish's primary-school-age children in one room of buildings.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

St Patrick's Day weekend is the date if you want to pair Annaclone with the Bronte birthday - Patrick was born 17 March 1777, and the interpretative centre at Drumballyroney tends to mark it. Drumlin hedgerows are greening up.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, the back lanes to Emdale and Drumballyroney at their best, and the GAA championship in full swing on Sunday afternoons up at Gaelic Park.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Drumlin country turns colour and the lanes are quiet. Interpretative-centre hours start to thin out for winter; check before you drive out.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, dark drumlin roads, very little open in the village itself. Chapel, school and pitch keep their own hours; the Bronte centre is on reduced winter hours or by arrangement.

◐ Mind yourself

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Coming looking for a Bronte museum in Annaclone

There isn't one in the village. The interpretative centre is at Drumballyroney church a couple of miles south, run on seasonal hours; the birthplace cottage at Emdale is a roadside ruin you view from the gate. The Annaclone end is the country, not a visitor attraction.

Treating Annaclone as a destination day

The village is a chapel, a school, a pitch and a few houses. Half an hour gives you the whole place. Pair it with Rathfriland for the Bronte drive, Banbridge for shops, or Newry for the bed.

Looking for a pub in the village

Annaclone is not a pub village. The nearest pints are in Rathfriland up the road or Banbridge down it. Drive the ten or fifteen minutes either way.

Trying to drive up to the Bronte birthplace in something big

The lanes to Emdale and the wider Bronte drive are single-track country roads with passing places and tractor traffic. A small car is the right car. A people-carrier reversing into a hedge is the wrong one.

Getting there.

By car

Banbridge to Annaclone is about 10 minutes south-east on the back roads via Lenaderg and Tullintanvally - roughly 7 km. Rathfriland is about 10 minutes south on the B7 and country lanes. Newry is about 25 minutes south-west. Belfast is about 45 minutes via the A1 to Banbridge, then the back roads. Dublin is about 1 hour 30 by motorway to Newry, then 20 minutes.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus runs limited services between Banbridge and Rathfriland that pass through or near Annaclone on weekdays. Sundays are thin to non-existent. Check Translink for the current timetable.

By train

No station. Newry (Bessbrook) is the nearest rail stop, on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise line, about 25 minutes away by car. The Banbridge line closed in 1956.

By air

Belfast International (BFS) is about 1 hour. Belfast City (BHD) is about 1 hour. Dublin (DUB) is about 1 hour 45.