Crossgar

Crossgar has had an interesting and varied past, dating from the establishment of ancient Gaelic royal and ecclesiastical sites, the settlement of Anglo-Norman invaders, to Scots settlers, to the St. Patrick's Day riots in the 1800s. According to a history of Down and Connor by a Fr. O'Laverty, the parish of Kilmore, in which Crossgar lies, was likely to have been established around 800 AD and was the ecclesiastical centre of this part of County Down. It was thought that the area had seven chapels and these can be reasonably evident by the remains of burial grounds. But the seventh cannot be traced to a burial ground and is referred to as the "lost chapel of Cill Glaise". O'Laverty says…