Caledon, County Tyrone

Infobox Irish Place|thumb|left|name = Caledon
irish = Cionn Aird
scots = Kinnaird
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pin coords =
north coord =
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province = Ulster
county = County Tyrone
NI district = Dungannon
UK constituency = Fermanagh and South Tyrone
stdcode = 028, +44 28
posttown = Caledon
postcode = BT68
population = 387
census yr = 2001
web = www.dungannon.gov.uk

Caledon (IPA2|'kalɪdɪn) (formerly known as Kinnaird)(Irish: "Cionn Aird" ) is a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in the Clogher Valley on the banks of the River Blackwater, some 7 miles from Armagh. It is situated in the south east of Tyrone and on the border of both County Armagh and County Monaghan. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 387 people. It is a designated conservation area. It lies within the Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council area.

History

*Thursday 20 June 1968 - The Caledon Protest:
Austin Currie, then Nationalist Member of Parliament (MP) at Stormont, and a number of other people, began a protest about discrimination in the allocation of housing by 'squatting' (illegally occupying) in a house in Caledon. The house had been allocated by Dungannon Rural District Council to a 19 year-old unmarried Protestant woman, Emily Beattie, who was the secretary of a local Unionist politician. Emily Beattie was given the house ahead of older married Catholic families with children. The protesters were evicted by officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The next day the annual conference of the Nationalist Party unanimously approved of the protest action by Austin Currie in Caledon. This was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland.

Although a seemingly peaceful rural village, Caledon in recent times has built a certain notoriety in recent years, attracting many media to the small rural village, for the 2004 murder of Killylea man Noel Williamson, the spate of attempted murders in February 2007 in which five men were stabbed and a double attempted murder in February 2008 in which a house was petrol bombed, leaving a father and his young son in critical condition.

Transport

Caledon railway station (on the narrow gauge Clogher Valley Railway) opened on 2 May 1887, but finally closed on 1 January 1942. Tynan and Caledon railway station on the mainline Great Northern Railway (Ireland) opened on 25 May 1858 and finally closed on 1 October 1957. [cite web | title=Caledon and Tynan and Caledon stations | work=Railscot - Irish Railways | url=http://www.railscot.co.uk/Ireland/Irish_railways.pdf | accessdate=2007-09-14]

People

*The village is home to the Earl of Caledon and the Alexander family as well as previously being home to Sir Pheilim (Feilim) O'Neill, the leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
*John Foster McCreight (1827-1913) was a jurist and the first Premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia. He was born in Caledon to a well-established and well-connected family.
*Jason Dowzell, the Internet entrepreneur and webmaster of the official Caledon website. Jason is Caledon's first and only millionaire and a staunch supporter of the 1st Caledon Girl Guides.

Education

* Churchill Primary School
* Minterburn Primary School
* St. Joseph's Primary School

The local converted court house has also been known to provide some evening educational activities, such as computer and first aid classes.

References

* [http://www.ninis.nisra.gov.uk/ NI Neighbourhood Information System]
* [http://www.caledon.org.uk/ Caledon Village website]
* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch68.htm Conflict Archive on the Internet]

See also

* List of villages in Northern Ireland
* List of towns in Northern Ireland
* Market Houses in Northern Ireland

External links

* [http://www.from-ireland.net/lewis/t/caledon.htm Lewis's Topographical Dictionary, 1837]
* [http://www.trainweb.org/i3/lewis_tyr.htm Lewis's Topographical Dictionary, 1842]