Qualla: County Armagh https://qualla.com/county-armagh en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: County Armagh https://qualla.com/county-armagh County Armagh: Introduction https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ It is the smallest county in Northern Ireland and the smallest in Ulster, just 1,327 square kilometres of orchards, drumlins, and granite uplands wedged between Lough Neagh and the southern border. But on 22 July 2021, an observation post at the Armagh Observatory recorded 31.4°C, the highest air temperature ever measured in Northern Ireland. Armagh tends to record things this way: hotter, older, more contested than its size suggests. The county is named for the goddess Macha, said to be buried on a wooded hill near where the city of Armagh now stands, and it has been called the Orchard County for so long that nobody quite knows when the nickname stuck. In May the apple blossom in the lower fields can stretch unbroken for miles.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full County Armagh: Macha's Country https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ The name comes straight from Irish mythology. Macha was a sovereignty goddess of the Ulaid, the prehistoric kings of Ulster, and according to The Book of the Taking of Ireland she was buried on a hill that became known as Ard Macha, Macha's height. Two miles west of the modern ci...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-machas-country.mp3 0:06 2 full County Armagh: From Slieve Gullion To Lough Neagh https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ Drive south from the lakeshore and the land rises. The northern third of the county is flat orchard country, the apple-growing heart of Ulster, sloping gently down to Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles. The middle is a sea of drumlins, the small egg-shaped hills l...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-from-slieve-gullion-to-lough-neagh.mp3 0:06 3 full County Armagh: Bandit Country https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ South Armagh has long had a reputation as one of the most strongly Irish-nationalist regions in Northern Ireland. During the Troubles it earned the nickname Bandit Country from the British Army, after Roy Mason's 1975 use of the phrase in a parliamentary debate. The South Armagh ...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-bandit-country.mp3 0:06 4 full County Armagh: The Orchard County https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ Half a million apple trees grow in north Armagh. The Bramley apple, that sharp green cooking apple beloved of British kitchens, has been cultivated commercially here since the 1880s and was granted Protected Geographical Indication status by the European Union in 2012. The orchar...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-the-orchard-county.mp3 0:06 5 full County Armagh: City Of Saints And Scholars https://qualla.com/county-armagh/ Armagh's other long-standing nickname, claimed by the city at the county's heart, is the City of Saints and Scholars. The phrase reflects the city's eighth-century role as a school of European reputation, said at its peak to have housed seven thousand students. The county has pro...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/m/county-armagh-wp/gcem-county-armagh-city-of-saints-and-scholars.mp3 0:06 6 full