Ahoghill Parish

Location

County: Antrim

Baronies: Antrim Lower, Toome Lower, Toome Upper

Diocese: Connor

Places: Ahoghill, Ballymena, Cullybackey, Galgorm, Gracehill, Portglenone

Poor law union: Ballymena

Probate registry: Belfast

Graveyards

Ahoghill 1st PCI

Ahoghill 2nd (Brookside) PCI

Ahoghill 3rd (Trinity) PCI

Ahoghill CofI

Ahoghill Old

Ahoghill RC

Galgorm

Gracehill Moravian

Churches

CofI: Ahoghill

Moravian: Gracehill

PCI: 1st Ahoghill; 2nd Ahoghill (Trinity); 3rd Ahoghill (Brookside)

RC: Ahoghill

Vestry records

Vestry minutes from 1811 onwards (with gaps) in local custody

Landed estates

Adair estate

Davy estate

Hunter estate

Hutchinson estate

Moore estate, Ballynacree

Mount Cashell estate

Mount Stafford estate

O’Neill estate

Schools

Ahoghill (Lismurnaghan) National/PE/PS (SCH/1155)

Aughtercloney National/PE/PS (SCH/1156)

Ballybeg National SCH/480

Ballymena Model (SCH/266)

Ballymontenagh Primary (SCH/1265)

Carniny National/PE/PS (SCH/18; MIC/15H/139)

Fourtowns National/PE (SCH/901)

Galgorm national/PE (SCH/37)

Gracehill National/PE (SCH/900)

Leymore National (SCH/49)

Longstone (Upper Largy) National/PE/PS (SCH/866)

Moyasset National (SCH/897)

Straid National/PE/PS (SCH/207)

Tullygarley National/PE (SCH/899)

Tullygrawley National/PE (SCH/949)

Local government

Letters concerning the appointment of a board of health for the district and parish of Ahoghill to deal with the threat from cholera, 1832, including the names of 23 individuals nominated to the board – NAI, CSO/RP/1832/3234

Law and order

Ahoghill Petty Sessions Court – HA/1/1

Business records

Famine Relief

Family papers

Papers relating to the Raphael family of Galgorm, beginning in 1724 – D3751

Census

Census subs

HMR, CPH, HSM, FL

Societies, etc

Publications

A History of Gracehill [1977], includes extracts from 18th-century Moravian records

The 1798 Rebellion as Recorded in the Diaries of Gracehill Moravian Church (1998)

Eull Dunlop (ed.), Ahoghill, parts 1–3 (1897–90); part 1 is subtitled: Buick’s Ahoghill a filial account (1910) of seceders in the mid-Antrim village where Rev. Frederick Buick was minister of the second Presbyterian congregation 1835–1908, including details of the Moores, Raphaels and other families of note

W. H. A. Lee, The Parish Church of St Colmanell (n.d.)

Adam Loughridge, The Covenanters of Cullybackey 1789–1989 (1989)

Jane Megaw, The Sun-Dialled Meeting Houses, Cullybackey: A Short History of the Cuningham Memorial Presbyterian Church and its Predecessor (2004)

William Shaw, A Short History of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation, Cullybackey (1912)

William Shaw, Cullybackey: The Story of an Ulster village (1913)

Joseph Thompson, The Meeting House on the Shining Bann: The Story of First Presbyterian Church Portglenone (1972)

Joseph Thompson, First Ahoghill Congregation from 1654 (2008)

Other sources

Names of members of Cullybackey Presbyterian Church who subscribed to a reward fund, 1773 – Belfast Newsletter, 8 Jan. 1773

Typescript history of Presbyterian Congregation and ministers at Ahoghill and a notebook containing anecdotes relating to the history, folk-life and superstitions of the Ahoghill area – MIC43/B

Personal account book kept by a member of the O’Hara or Hamilton family, Portglenone, possibly Charles Hamilton, a grandson of Bishop Hutchinson, 1763–7 – DIO/1/22/4A

Indictments at spring assizes in 1772 of a large number of people from the Cullybackey area – printed in F. J. Bigger, The Ulster Land War of 1770 (1910), pp 147–8

Notes

In former times this parish was also known as Magherahoghill (spelled variously). In the early nineteenth century the parishes of Craigs and Portglenone were created out of Ahoghill. A portion of the town of Ballymena extends into this parish – see Kirkinriola for more Ballymena records.