Loughross

Loughross is a townland of 231 statute acres 1 rood and 10 perches in County Armagh about a mile northwest of Crossmaglen straddling the road to Castleblaney. It is bounded on the north by Corliss and Creenkill, on the east by Rathkeekan, on the south by Creevekeeran and Lough Ross itself and on the west by Drumgoose and Tullyard. Seventeen acres of the townland is accounted for in Lough Ross. In the Tithe Applotment Books of 1828 the total acerage is given as 142 acres 2 roods and 13 perches (Plantation Irish measure).

Name of townland

Loch Rios, the lake of the Ross. Fr. Murray contends that the lake touches Fir-Rios territory.⁽¹⁾

There is no other townland in Ireland with that name.

Ordnanace Survey Name Books: Creggan Parish ⁽²⁾

LOUGHROSS (OSNB ii 36): This Townland is situated on the eastern border of the lake of the same name part of which belongs to the Townland. Four considerable roads intersect each other in the centre of this Townland. The soil principally under tillage. About 1/2 a mile from Crossmaglen village.
It contains 251..0..212 of which 16..3..2 is under water.

Valuation

Although the decimalisation of the currency was introduced only in 1971, all of the valuations in the following table have been converted from £sd for convenience.

Year	1837	1851	1864	1871	1881	1891	1901	1911	1926	1935	1952	1957	1974
Valuation	£118.20	£143.00	£147.25	£146.25	£145.00	£145.50	£145.25	£145.25	£144.75	£152.40	£197.15	£249.15	£265.90

The 1837 Townland Valuation recorded only houses worth £5 or more a year. There were no such houses in the townland.

Griffiths Valuation records the owner of the land as John Clooney.

Census of Ireland 1901

The Census enumerated 57 people in 16 households; a ratio of 3.6 people per household. The households occupied a total of 32 rooms; a ratio of 2 rooms per household and 1.8 people per room. One of the households had 4 rooms, one had 3 rooms, eleven had 2 rooms and three occupied a single room.

Native Irish Speakers

Of the 16 households enumerated in the Census, 8 contained at least one native Irish speaker - 15 in all. Since theirs was the last generation to have been born into a substantially Irish speaking environment, their names, occupations and ages are recorded here. All were born in Co. Armagh, with the exception of Mary Tavey, born Co. Monaghan.

Population Decline

The following table sets out the number of houses and population enumerated in the townland in each of the 11 Censuses held between 1841 and 1951.

	1841	1851	1861	1871	1881	1891	1901	1911	1926	1937	1951
Houses	28	21	18	19	17	16	16	15	12	12	10
People	147	102	104	90	84	66	59	53	47	31	41
People per house	5.3	4.9	5.8	4.7	4.9	4.1	3.7	3.5	3.9	2.6	4.1

In the period of 110 years, the number of households dropped from seven to two and the population from 49 to five. The initial fall of 14, after the famine years, was followed by a slow steady decline until the 1920s when the position rallied briefly until after the 1937 census.

Names of House and Land Holders ⁽³⁾

The following table sets of the names of those who owned or rented houses and land on the townland at the time the valuation records or population censuses were compiled.