Mounthill

Mounthill is a townland of 526 statute acres 1 rood and 3 perches about three south-east of Crossmaglen on the Creggan-Ballsmill Road. It is bounded on the north by Lurgancullenboy, on the east by Glassdrummond, by the west by Cornoonagh and on the south by County Louth in the Republic of Ireland. In the Tithe Applotment Books of 1828 the total acerage is shown as 315 acres and 30 roods (Plantation Irish measure).

Name of townland

The original name of the townland was Ballynaghy Baile an Achaidh, "the townland of the field", but was changed in the eithteenth centure to take its name from The Rev Hill, who appears in the 1766 Census of Creggan (here in bold). Mounthill was also the birthplace of the renowned Gaelic poet Art McCooey whose birth house is still standing, though in ruins. The James McCooy in the 1766 Census was his father.

Ordnanace Survey Name Books: Creggan Parish ⁽¹⁾

MOUNTHILL (OSNB ii 42): There are two good bye roads. Meet each other at right L in centre of this Td. It is chiefly under tillage but produces light crops. There are a great many of scattered dwellings thro' it, rather miserable in appearance without any approach except thro' fields. About l/2 mile W. of Balls Mill Village.
It contains 526..1..3 of which 15..2..32 is uncultivated and Bog.

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	£293.78	£242.50	£289.45	£285.50	£285.50	£285.75	£285.75	£286.00	£280.25	£298.00	£298.50	£355.25	£365.75

The 1837 Townland Valuation recorded only houses worth £5 or more a year. There were two such houses in the townland -

• Samuel Coulter and
• William Dowdall

Griffiths Valuation records the owner of the land as Edward Hill.

Census of Ireland 1901

The Census enumerated 90 people in 30 households; a ratio of 3 people per household. The households occupied a total of 64 rooms; a ratio of 2.1 rooms per household and 1.4 people per room. One of the households had 4 rooms, six had 3 rooms, 19 had 2 rooms and four had but one room. Twenty four (80%) of the houses were thatched.

Native Irish Speakers

Of the 30 households enumerated in the Census, 19 contained at least one native Irish speaker - 31 in all. Since theirs was the last generation to have been born into a predominently Irish speaking environment, their names, occupations and ages are recorded here. All were born in Co. Armagh, with the exception of John Kirk, Bridget Kirk, Mary Kirk and Catherine Kirk, all born in Co. Louth.

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	53	51	41	41	39	33	31	26	20	17	15
People	270	214	193	188	167	132	93	83	84	67	54
People per house	5.1	4.2	4.7	4.6	4.3	4.0	3.0	3.2	4.2	3.9	3.6

In the period of 110 years, the number of households dropped by 72% and the population by 80%. The initial fall of 29% between 1841 and 1961, was followed by a steady decline for the following 90 years.

Names of House and Land Holders ⁽²⁾

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.