GREENISLAND covers 18.8 km² in Northern Ireland. With 26 historic sites and 2 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 47th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 15 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 43rd percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 12.6 recorded sites — the 50th 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 6 archaeological periods, around the NI median for chronological depth.
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 GREENISLAND
Of the 26 historic sites recorded, the most common are Souterrain: Troopersland (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated) (2, 8% of historic sites), Megalithic Tomb?: Troopersland (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated) (2), and Premonstratensian Abbey: Woodburn Abbey (1). For Souterrain: Troopersland (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated)s, this is the 0th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Megalithic Tomb?: Troopersland (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated)s, this is the 0th percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 18.8 km², this gives a recorded density of 2.29 sites per km² (all heritage types combined).
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Souterrain: Troopersland (o.s. Memoir Site, Unlocated) | 2 | — |
| Megalithic Tomb?: Troopersland (o.s. Memoir Site, Unlocated) | 2 | — |
| Premonstratensian Abbey: Woodburn Abbey | 1 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 19% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 51m sits around the NI median (40th percentile), but the ward reaches 279m at its highest point — a vertical span of more than 227m within its boundary, indicating significant topographic diversity. The terrain is consistently steep, with a mean slope of 5.7° (86th percentile across NI); localised maximum slopes reach 19°, typical of stream-cut valleys, escarpments, or bluffs within the wider landscape. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.1 (33th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (50%), woodland (32%), and urban land (16%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is steeply-sloping terrain at modest elevation, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Mesozoic era (Triassic period). Rock formed during the age of dinosaurs; in NI this typically appears as Triassic mudstones and Jurassic clays now buried beneath younger deposits. Bedrock composition is uniform (complexity index 0.33), with a single dominant geological unit underlying most of the ward. A uniform geology narrows the natural lithic-resource base available to past inhabitants.
Placename evidence
This ward has only 4 placenames recorded across OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames, none of which fall into the diagnostic categories used for heritage analysis (ecclesiastical, defensive, Norse, Anglo-Norman, or Plantation-era). The remainder are generic Gaelic landscape forms that are common across Ireland and carry no specific period signal.
Scheduled monuments in GREENISLAND
Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).
| Monument | Type | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Platform rath | Platform Rath | Early Medieval |
| Mound 'Fairy Mound'. Has been added to with soil from the creation of the layby. | Mound 'Fairy Mound'. Has Been Added To With Soil From The Creation Of The Layby. | Unknown |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE – circular cropmark | Early Medieval | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular cropmarks | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – elliptical cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| ARTILLERY FORT: SCOUT BUSH or SCOUT GUARD or LETTICE LAND | Medieval | Defence |
| Bronze Age house and enclosure | Early Bronze Age | Domestic |
| CAIRN? | Early Bronze Age | Ritual/Funerary |
| CAVE: O'HAUGHAN'S CAVE, HAUGHIAN'S CAVE, HANGMAN'S CAVE | Unknown | Unknown |
| CIST BURIALS: THE BURIAL GROUND, TROOPERSLAND (O.S. memoir site, unlocated) | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| ENCLOSURE & SOUTERRAIN | Early Medieval | Defence |
| ENCLOSURE (possible) and LINEAR BANKS (culvert) | Modern | Commercial |
Listed buildings in GREENISLAND
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Orient House 142 Upper Road Greenisland Co Antrim BT38 8RL | B2 | 1900 – 1919 |
| The Lodge Seapark House 109 Shore Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 8TZ | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Boathouse Seapark House 109 Shore Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 8TZ | B1 | 1800 – 1819 |
| Newbath House, 105 Shore Road, Greenisland, Co Antrim BT38 8TZ | B2 | 1820 – 1839 |
| Seapark House, 109 Shore Road, Greenisland, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, BT38 8TZ | B+ | 1800 – 1819 |
| 107 Shore Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co. Antrim BT38 8TZ | Record Only | 1820 – 1839 |
| Ebenezer Church of the Nazarene 128 Shore Road Greenisland Co Antrim BT38 8TT **See General Comments** | Record Only | — |
| 69 Shore Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co. Antrim BT38 8TZ | Record Only | 1900 – 1919 |
| Greenisland Primary School Upper Station Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co.Antrim BT38 8RA | Record Only | 1920 – 1939 |
| Greenisland Presbyterian Church 166 Upper Road Greenisland Carrickfergus Co. Antrim BT38 8RW | Record Only | 1940 – 1959 |
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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/