DERRYBOY

Daniel Kirkpatrick

DERRYBOY Heritage Profile

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By

Daniel Kirkpatrick

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By | Compiled 2026-05-05 | N08001016
145 historic sites 11 scheduled monuments 42 listed buildings 8 archaeological periods

DERRYBOY covers 224.4 km² in Northern Ireland. With 145 historic sites and 11 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 91st percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 42 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 72nd percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 49.6 recorded sites — the 90th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Modern period, spanning 8 archaeological periods, placing the ward in the 90th percentile NI-wide for chronological depth.

Detailed boundary map of DERRYBOY ward, Newry, Mourne and Down
DERRYBOY boundary detail
Regional context map showing DERRYBOY ward within Newry, Mourne and Down
DERRYBOY in regional context

Heritage at a glance

Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.

145
Historic sites
95th percentile
11
Scheduled monuments
86th percentile
42
Listed buildings
72nd percentile
0.88
Sites per km²

Population context

18
Persons per km²
17th percentile
49.6
Sites per 1,000 residents
90th percentile
3,993
Total residents (2021)

The recorded heritage of DERRYBOY

Of the 145 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (14, 10% of historic sites), Cleared Slipway (11), and Rath (7). For Enclosures, this is the 81st percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Cleared Slipways, this is the 40th percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 224.4 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.88 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.05° of latitude and 0.15° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.

Most common monument types

TypeCountDescription
Enclosure 14 —
Cleared Slipway 11 —
Rath 7 —

Chronological distribution

Mesolithic
5
Neolithic
2
Early Bronze Age
1
Iron Age
18
Early Medieval
28
Medieval
9
Post Medieval
48
Modern
4
Unknown
30

Note: 21% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.

Terrain and environment

Mean elevation of 29m sits around the NI median (22th percentile), reaching 94m at the highest point. Mean slope is 3.8° (42th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. Drainage is poor across much of the ward — the Topographic Wetness Index of 11.0 sits in the 81th NI percentile, reflecting low-lying or impeded-drainage ground prone to waterlogging. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (60%), open water (23%), and woodland (10%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape.

Terrain measurements

Mean elevation28.7 m 23rd pct
Max elevation94.2 m 40th pct
Mean slope3.8° 42nd pct
Wetness index (TWI)11.00 81st pct
Grassland60.5% 55th pct
Woodland9.9% 18th pct
Cropland5.1% 80th pct
Urban land1.0% 8th pct

Where this ward sits in NI

Elevation
23rd
Slope
42nd
Drainage
81st
Grassland
55th
Woodland
18th

Geology and preservation

The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Silurian period). Ancient sedimentary or metamorphic rock dating to before the age of dinosaurs; the resulting landscape has been long-stable enough to host every period of human activity. Bedrock composition is uniform (complexity index 0.00), with a single dominant geological unit underlying most of the ward. A uniform geology narrows the natural lithic-resource base available to past inhabitants.

Bedrock eraPalaeozoic
Bedrock periodSilurian
Surface depositsTill
Peat coverage0.0%
Bedrock complexity0.00

Placename evidence

The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 43 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 3 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-) and 4 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-). Note: Irish-language (name_ga) forms are recorded for roughly half of NI placenames in the combined sources, so anglicised forms whose Irish original could belong to multiple categories may be misclassified.

Placename categories

Ecclesiastical (kil-, temple-, monaster-)4 names
Pre-Christian Defensive (rath-, dun-, lis-)3 names

Scheduled monuments in DERRYBOY

Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).

MonumentTypePeriod
Raised rathRaised RathEarly Medieval
Crannog in the Clea LakesCrannog In The Clea LakesIron Age
Crannog in the Clea LakesCrannog In The Clea LakesIron Age
Motte and baileyMotte And BaileyMedieval
Standing stoneStanding StoneEarly Bronze Age
RathRathEarly Medieval
Tower-house: Ringhaddy CastleTower-House: Ringhaddy CastleUnknown
Ringhaddy Church (area surrounding the state care monument)Ringhaddy Church (Area Surrounding The State Care Monument)Unknown

Recorded historic sites

NamePeriodType
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITEPost-MedievalUnknown
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITEUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – RATH?Early MedievalDefence
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE CROPMARKSUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE CROPMARKSUnknownUnknown

Listed buildings in DERRYBOY

Address / NameGradePeriod
John Martin Monument Clay Road Shrigley Tullyveery (Td.) Killyleagh Co. Down BT30 9PNB11860 – 1879
Raffrey Presbyterian Church Manse Road Raffrey Crossgar Co. Down BT30 9LYB21840 – 1859
42 Quarterland Road Rathgorman Killinchy Co. Down BT23 6TXB21820 – 1839
Moor Hall (with gates and outbuildings) 96 Killyleagh Road Ballybredagh Killinchy Co. Down BT23 6TRB21760 – 1779
93 Derryboy Road Ballygoskin Crossgar Co. Down BT30 9LWB21820 – 1839
38 Ballygoskin Road Ballygoskin Crossgar Co. Down BT30 9LWRecord Only1820 – 1839
Archway and adjacent buildings at 'The Fort' 171 Clay Road Ballygoskin Killyleagh Co. Down BT30 9PNRecord Only1820 – 1839
Tullyverry House 7 Ardigon Road Tullyveery Killyleagh Co. Down BT30 9TAB11820 – 1839
Outbuildings at Tullyveery House 7 Ardigon Road Tullyveery Killyleagh Co. Down BT30 9TAB21840 – 1859
Outbuildings at Tullyveery House (calf house, cottage) 7 Ardigon Road Tullyveery Killyleagh Co. Down BT30 9TAB21860 – 1879

Further reading

Discover more in Newry, Mourne and Down

Grounding History report mockup

Want a deeper view?

Grounding History: 10 Maps of Northern Ireland’s Past

A spatial history report bringing together analysis of all 462 wards into one place through 10 high-quality maps — covering monument density, archaeological periods, placename heritage, terrain, wetland, and the historic landscape at first survey.

View the report — £12.99

About this profile

What is a ward?

A ward is the smallest electoral and statistical geography used by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The boundaries used here are the 2014 NISRA / OSNI Wards (462 across Northern Ireland), each typically covering 1-700 km² and a population of a few thousand. Wards do not align with parishes, townlands, or any historic administrative unit — they are a modern statistical convenience, used here only as a fixed spatial frame within which to summarise heritage records.

What counts as a site?

Three distinct heritage record types are reported separately, not combined: (1) Historic Sites — entries in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR), the inventory of recorded archaeological sites and findspots, dated from prehistoric to early-modern; (2) Scheduled Monuments — sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995 and maintained by the Historic Environment Division (HED); (3) Listed Buildings — buildings of architectural or historic interest protected under the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and graded A, B+, B1, B2, or Record-Only by HED. A site appearing in more than one register is counted in each register independently.

Editorial principles

These ward profiles describe evidence, not history. They report what is recorded, not what occurred. Where the data is ambiguous, we say so. We do not infer historical processes — population movements, settlement expansion, periods of decline — from patterns in the record. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in Northern Ireland, where antiquarian survey was uneven and modern excavation is geographically biased, a gap in the record almost always reflects the limits of recording rather than a genuine historical absence. We mark such gaps explicitly where they appear in the data.

Limits of coverage and known caveats

Several caveats apply to every ward profile: (1) NISMR coverage is uneven across NI — some areas (notably parts of the south-east and the Belfast urban fringe) have been more intensively surveyed than others, so a low recorded site count does not reliably indicate a low past density of activity; (2) period attributions in NISMR are often 'Unknown', and chronological breakdowns reported here reflect only the dated subset; (3) placename classification depends on the Irish-language form (name_ga), which is recorded for approximately 50% of NI placenames in the combined sources, so ecclesiastical and pre-Christian counts may be understated where anglicised forms remain unparsed; (4) terrain percentile ranks compare each ward only to the other 461 NI wards; they are not absolute thresholds. For absence-dominant land cover categories (wetland, water, cropland), percentile ranks are suppressed below 1% raw value, since the ranking of zero-value wards is not meaningful.

Data sources (11)
Spotted an error? This dataset is updated continuously. Email contact@danielkirkpatrick.co.uk with corrections, missing records, or suggestions for improvement.