FEENY

Daniel Kirkpatrick

FEENY Heritage Profile

/

By

Daniel Kirkpatrick

/

By | Compiled 2026-05-05 | N08000418
98 historic sites 16 scheduled monuments 72 listed buildings 6 archaeological periods

FEENY covers 301.5 km² in Northern Ireland. With 98 historic sites and 16 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 90th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 72 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 87th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 51.6 recorded sites — the 91st percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Post-Medieval period, spanning 6 archaeological periods, around the NI median for chronological depth.

Detailed boundary map of FEENY ward, Causeway Coast and Glens
FEENY boundary detail
Regional context map showing FEENY ward within Causeway Coast and Glens
FEENY in regional context

Heritage at a glance

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

98
Historic sites
89th percentile
16
Scheduled monuments
93rd percentile
72
Listed buildings
87th percentile
0.62
Sites per km²

Population context

12
Persons per km²
8th percentile
51.6
Sites per 1,000 residents
91st percentile
3,607
Total residents (2021)

The recorded heritage of FEENY

Of the 98 historic sites recorded, the most common are Standing Stone (10, 10% of historic sites), Enclosure (6), and Cairn (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated) (5). For Standing Stones, this is the 86th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Enclosures, this is the 53rd percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 301.5 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.62 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.06° of latitude and 0.11° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.

Most common monument types

TypeCountDescription
Standing Stone 10 —
Enclosure 6 —
Cairn (o.s. Memoir Site, Unlocated) 5 —

Chronological distribution

Mesolithic
46
Early Bronze Age
2
Iron Age
13
Early Medieval
23
Medieval
1
Post Medieval
3
Unknown
10

Terrain and environment

A mean elevation of 231m places this ward in the top 2% of NI wards by altitude, but the ward reaches 627m at its highest point — a vertical span of more than 395m within its boundary, indicating significant topographic diversity. The terrain is consistently steep, with a mean slope of 6.6° (92th percentile across NI). The ward is well-drained, with a Topographic Wetness Index of 9.5 (8th NI percentile) — characteristic of upland or steeply-sloping ground that sheds water rapidly. The land cover is dominated by improved grassland (86%) and woodland (12%). In overall character, this is an upland landscape of steep, elevated terrain, with land use dominated by improved grassland.

Terrain measurements

Mean elevation231.2 m 99th pct
Max elevation626.6 m 98th pct
Mean slope6.6° 93rd pct
Wetness index (TWI)9.49 8th pct
Grassland85.7% 93rd pct
Woodland12.5% 31st pct
Urban land1.1% 9th pct

Where this ward sits in NI

Elevation
99th
Slope
93rd
Drainage
8th
Grassland
93rd
Woodland
31st

Geology and preservation

The dominant bedrock formed during the Neoproterozoic era (Carboniferous period). Late Pre-Cambrian rock laid down before the Cambrian explosion of life — a stable, long-eroded basement geology. Peat covers 30% of the ward. Peat-bound ground preserves organic archaeological material that would not survive on aerated mineral soils. Bedrock composition is moderately varied (complexity index 0.60), with two or three geological units present within the ward boundary.

Bedrock eraNeoproterozoic
Bedrock periodCarboniferous
Surface depositsGlacial Sand And Gravel
Peat coverage29.7%
Bedrock complexity0.60

Placename evidence

The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 40 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 2 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-), 4 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-), and 1 Plantation-era (17th c English/Scots settlement names). 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-)2 names
Plantation Era1 name

Scheduled monuments in FEENY

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
Stone circles and alignmentsStone Circles And AlignmentsEarly Bronze Age
Church SiteChurch SiteUnknown
RathRathEarly Medieval
RathRathEarly Medieval
Rath: Tandragee FortRath: Tandragee FortEarly Medieval
Standing StoneStanding StoneEarly Bronze Age
Dungiven Castle: part of wallsDungiven Castle: Part Of WallsUnknown
Sweat HouseSweat HouseUnknown

Recorded historic sites

NamePeriodType
BARROW (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary
BULLAUN (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)UnknownUnknown
BURIAL (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)Early MedievalRitual/Funerary
BURIAL MOUND?: LISNAGORP (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)Early Bronze AgeRitual/Funerary
BURIALS (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary
CAIRNMesolithicRitual/Funerary
CAIRN (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary
CAIRN (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary
CAIRN (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary
CAIRN (O.S. memoir site, unlocated)MesolithicRitual/Funerary

Listed buildings in FEENY

Address / NameGradePeriod
Knockan Bridge Killunaght Road Dungiven Co LondonderryB11780 – 1799
Carnanbane Bridge Carnanbane Road Dungiven Co LondonderryB21860 – 1879
Derrychier Bridge Derrychier Road Derrychier Dungiven Co LondonderryB21860 – 1879
Fincarn Bridge Altimure Road Fincarn Feeny Co LondonderryB21860 – 1879
Owenbeg Bridge Foreglen Road Dungiven Co LondonderryB21780 – 1799
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. Foreglen Road Dungiven Co Londonderry BT47 4PLRecord Only1920 – 1939
The Old Rectory Glenshane Road Dungiven Co Londonderry BT47B+1800 – 1819
Banagher Church of Ireland Feeny Road Rallagh Dungiven Co LondonderryB+1780 – 1799
Ashpark House 712 Glenshane Road Feeny Co Londonderry BT47 4TGB+1780 – 1799
714 Glenshane Road Feeny Co Londonderry BT47 4TGB11780 – 1799

Further reading

Discover more in Causeway Coast and Glens

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.