GILNAHIRK covers 5.4 km² in Northern Ireland. With 3 historic sites and 0 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 18th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 5 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 20th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 1.6 recorded sites — the 14th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Iron Age through to the Early Medieval period, spanning 2 archaeological periods, the 22nd percentile across NI wards (a relatively narrow chronological band). The recorded total is low relative to the ward's area. In Northern Ireland this typically reflects limits of survey coverage rather than a genuine absence of past activity.
Heritage at a glance
Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.
Population context
The recorded heritage of GILNAHIRK
Of the 3 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (1, 33% of historic sites), Mound (1), and Medieval Church & Graveyard (Site Of) & Possibly Pre-Norman Church: Gortcrib (1). For Enclosures, this is the 0th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Mounds, this is the 0th percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 5.4 km², this gives a recorded density of 1.48 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Note: 33% of historic site records carry an 'Unknown' period attribution and cannot be placed chronologically; the chronological breakdown reported below reflects only the dated subset.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enclosure | 1 | — |
| Mound | 1 | — |
| Medieval Church & Graveyard (site Of) & Possibly Pre-norman Church: Gortcrib | 1 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 33% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 58m sits around the NI median (47th percentile), reaching 122m at the highest point. Mean slope is 5.1° (73th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. The Topographic Wetness Index of 9.9 (21th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines urban land (38%), woodland (34%), and improved grassland (26%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Permian 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 varied (complexity index 0.72, on a 0-1 Simpson-style scale), with multiple geological units within the ward boundary. Geologically diverse wards historically offered a wider range of stone types for building, toolmaking, and quarrying — a relevant factor when interpreting the material culture of nearby sites.
Placename evidence
The placename record for this ward is small — 7 names in total — but it does include 1 pre-Christian defensive placename. With this few records, the count should be treated as indicative rather than a firm characterisation.
Placename categories
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| ENCLOSURE | Iron Age | Unknown |
| MEDIEVAL CHURCH & GRAVEYARD (site of) & possibly PRE-NORMAN CHURCH: GORTCRIB | Early Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| MOUND | Unknown | Unknown |
Listed buildings in GILNAHIRK
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Kingsway Drive Knock Belfast County Antrim BT5 7DP ** See General Comments ** | Record Only | — |
| 235 Kings Road BELFAST County Antrim BT5 7EH ** See General Comments ** | Record Only | — |
| St Dorthea’s Church of Ireland 2-4 Gortland Park Belfast County Antrim BT5 7NU ** See General Comments ** | Record Only | — |
| Hall St Dorthea’s Church of Ireland 2-4 Gortland Park Belfast County Antrim BT5 7NU ** See General Comments ** | Record Only | — |
| Gilnahirk Presbyterian Church 161 Gilnahirk Road Belfast County Antrim BT5 7QQ | Record Only | 1840 – 1859 |
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.
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)
- Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/nismr-public-mapviewer
- HED Scheduled Monuments Dataset https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@historic-environment-division/scheduled-monuments-northern-ireland
- HED Historic Buildings Record https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/historic-environment/listed-buildings
- OSNI OS Open Names (Northern Ireland) https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data—50k-gazetteer
- Logainm — Placenames Database of Ireland https://www.logainm.ie/
- GeoNames https://www.geonames.org/
- Census 2021 (Northern Ireland) https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2021-census
- OSNI Open Data — Largescale Boundaries https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data-largescale-boundaries-wards-2012
- Copernicus GLO-30 DEM https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/collections/copernicus-digital-elevation-model
- ESA WorldCover https://esa-worldcover.org/
- GSNI 1:250,000 Geology https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/maps/