MAHON covers 55.1 km² in Northern Ireland. With 10 historic sites and 2 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 33rd percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 8 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 28th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 3.9 recorded sites — the 30th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Iron Age through to the Modern period, spanning 4 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 MAHON
Of the 10 historic sites recorded, the most common are Rath (3, 30% of historic sites), Church (Site Of) & Holy Well: Maghon Well Or St. Patrick'S Well (1), and Castle (1). For Raths, this is the 23rd percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Church (Site Of) & Holy Well: Maghon Well Or St. Patrick'S Wells, this is the 0th percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 55.1 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.36 sites per km² (all heritage types combined).
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rath | 3 | — |
| Church (site Of) & Holy Well: Maghon Well Or St. Patrick's Well | 1 | — |
| Castle | 1 | — |
Chronological distribution
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 24m sits around the NI median (16th percentile), reaching 59m at the highest point. The terrain is broadly flat, with a mean slope of 3.0° (16th percentile across NI). Drainage is poor across much of the ward — the Topographic Wetness Index of 11.1 sits in the 83th NI percentile, reflecting low-lying or impeded-drainage ground prone to waterlogging. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (73%), woodland (16%), and urban land (7%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is low-lying, gently-sloping terrain — characteristic of NI's lowland basins and coastal plains, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Cainozoic era (Palaeogene period). Relatively young rock formed in the last 66 million years. In Ulster, Cainozoic basalt — the lava that created the Antrim Plateau and Giant's Causeway — dominates much of the eastern landscape. Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.83, 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 — 13 names in total — but it does include 1 ecclesiastical placename. With this few records, the count should be treated as indicative rather than a firm characterisation.
Placename categories
Scheduled monuments in MAHON
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The Newry Canal REACH 14 | The Newry Canal Reach 14 | Post-Medieval |
| WWII PILLBOX | Wwii Pillbox | Modern |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BATTLE SITE, 951 AD, & FINDSPOT of 3 BRONZE SWORDS & A SPEAR (unlocated) | Unknown | Unknown |
| CASTLE | Post-Medieval | Defence |
| CHURCH (site of) & HOLY WELL: MAGHON WELL or ST. PATRICK'S WELL | Early Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| ENCLOSURE: LIME KILN FORT in THE REAGH BOG | Iron Age | Defence |
| RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
| RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
| RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
| TREE RING | Post-Medieval | Unknown |
| UNCERTAIN – oval enclosure, unlocated | Iron Age | Unknown |
| WWII PILLBOX – DHP no.221 | Modern | Defence |
Listed buildings in MAHON
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 48 Mullahead Road Tandragee Craigavon BT62 2LA | B1 | 1820 – 1839 |
| MAHON HOUSE MAHON ROAD PORTADOWN CO.ARMAGH | B1 | — |
| THE FIRS 41 MAHON ROAD PORTADOWN CO.ARMAGH | B1 | — |
| 30 HORSESHOE LANE, AKA Moneypenny's Lock House NEWRY CANAL BRACKAGH PORTADOWN CO.ARMAGH | B1 | — |
| PROSPECT HOUSE MULLAHEAD TANGRAGEE CO.ARMAGH | B1 | — |
| ROAD BRIDGE OVER NEWRY CANAL MULLAHEAD TANDRAGEE CO.ARMAGH | B1 | — |
| KNOCK BRIDGE MULLAHEAD TANDRAGEE CO.ARMAGH | B2 | — |
| Former sawmill and byre at 143 Markethill Road Portadown Co Armagh BT62 3SL | Record Only | 1920 – 1939 |
Discover more in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon
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/