Glenullin

Glenullin
Irish: Gleann an Iolar
Glenullin  Glenullin shown within Northern Ireland
– Belfast	50 miles
District	Coleraine Borough
County	County Londonderry
Country	Northern Ireland
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Coleraine
Postcode district	BT51
Dialling code	028, +44 28
Police	Northern Ireland
Fire	Northern Ireland
Ambulance	Northern Ireland
EU Parliament	Northern Ireland
UK Parliament	East Londonderry
NI Assembly	East Londonderry
List of places UK Northern Ireland County Londonderry

Glenullin is a rural area centred on a valley between the villages of Garvagh, Swatragh and Dungiven, and lies in the borough of Coleraine, Northern Ireland. The nearest city is Derry which is 27 miles away. 'The Glen', as it is often known, is not an officially recognised administrative division but there is a strong local identity and an active community sector. Although the area has few amenities, the local Primary school, St Patrick's & St Joseph's Federated Primary School, and St Joseph's Catholic Church have particular prominence in the life of Glenullin.

Sport

Glenullin was one of the first areas in the county to organise Gaelic games and the local club, John Mitchel's GAC, based at Seán Ó Maoláin Park, has a number of football, hurling and camogie teams.

People

• Martin Mullan, Local business man, plays a very big part in funding and running the local GAA club.
• Paddy Bradley, Gaelic football player. Played for Derry from the 1990s until 2010.
• Gabriel Bradley, Gaelic footballer, played for the county in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Liam 'Baker' Bradley, manager of Antrim GAA football team.
• Eoin Bradley, Gaelic football player, a star of the county team from 2008 until an injury in 2011.
• Dermot McNicholl, one of the leading Gaelic footballers in the county in the 1980s and 1990s, also played Australian rules football and in the International Rules Series.
• Harry Mullan, boxing journalist (1946–99).
• John Eddie Mullan (1923-2008), later a Derry player, briefly played football for Glenullin in the 1940s.
• Gerard O'Kane, Gaelic football player, on county teams since 2002.

Ecology

In the basin of the valley there is an ombrotrophic raised bog which, having suffered severe ecological damage by commercial peat extraction in 1994, is not a protected site. Much of Glenullin bog that remains today would have been familiar to the different cultures that have populated the valley, including the pre-Christian Iron Age and the people of the Middle Ages who built forts, raths and ritual cairns on prominent locations on hillsides and drumlins. Over recent centuries, the inhabitants of the single-storey, thatched vernacular dwellings that dotted the valley sides harvested turf from the bog, revealing the stumps of the oaks that once filled the valley.

Parish

Glenullin is in the civil parish of Errigal and in the Catholic parish of Garvagh in the (Diocese of Derry). Glenullin covers about half the total parish area, the remaining being in the village of Garvagh and the neighbouring hamlet of Ballerin.