Larne, NIR - Postcode - BT40 3JS

Description of Larne

Located on the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, the town of Larne (which takes its name from a Gaelic region) has an official population of 18,755 as of the 2011 Census. It's an important hub for shipping both people and goods. The Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is responsible for the day-to-day operations in Larne. It is part of the East Antrim constituency for Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly elections, together with portions of the neighboring districts of Antrim and Newtownabbey and Causeway Coast and Glens. Historic barony of Glenarm Upper contains the civil parish.

History of Larne

There is evidence that people have been living along the shore around Larne for thousands of years, making it one of the earliest populated regions in all of Ireland. These first settlers likely crossed the North Channel from Scotland. Knockdhu, located north of Larne, was a Bronze Age village and fort on a promontory. It is hypothesized that the first coastal residents of Scotland had a society that included sophisticated trading networks along the North Channel and among the other coastal communities of the country. It is possible to see the Scottish coast from here. The flintwork and other artifacts unearthed in the vicinity have been dated to between 6,000 and 3,000 B.C. Archaeologists have even come up with a word, Larnian, to designate flintworks and other related artifacts from the Mesolithic period (and one time to describe Mesolithic culture in Ireland as a whole). Current usage also includes persons from Larne when referring to themselves as Larnian.

The name "Larne" comes from the Gaelic word for "territory," "tath," which was Latharna. Latharna was a portion of the Ulaid tath of Dál nAraidi. At one time, the Anglo-Norman cantred of Carrickfergus went by the name Latharne. The name Latharna means "descendants of Lathar," and the legends say that Lathar was a son of the pre-Christian monarch gaine Mór. The area where the Inver River empties into Larne Lough is where the town first appeared. Originally called Inbhear a Latharna (meaning "rivermouth/estuary of Latharna") in Irish, the name was changed to Inver Larne and then to just Inver. Only in more recent centuries has the name "Latharna" been used exclusively to refer to the city. The Roman emperor Severus is supposed to have written about a Roman galley that strayed from its course and ended up in Portus Saxa, presently thought to be Larne Lough, on its way to Scotland in the year 204 AD. Ptolemy, an astronomer and geographer from the second century AD, mentioned Islandmagee on one of his maps, indicating the ancient Greeks were well familiar with the Antrim coast.

Vikings were present in the area between the years 1000 and 1100 AD. Artifacts and Viking burial grounds have been dated to this time period. In Old Norse, the name for Larne Lough was Ulfreksfjord. Snorri Sturluson, a historian from the Scandinavian country of Norway, claims that in 1018 King Connor of Ireland beat the Vikings from the island of Orkney at the Battle of Ulfreksfjord. Wulfrichford, Wolderfirth, Wolverflete, and the surviving Olderfleet are all examples of places whose names were anglicized afterwards. The Norse word fljot, which means "inlet," is where we get the -fleet ending. The prefix older- could be derived from the Norse word oldu, which means "wave."

Scots of the Bissett family erected Olderfleet Castle on Curran Point in the 13th century. Olderfleet Castle played a pivotal role in Edward the Bruce of Scotland's (brother of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland) 1315 invasion of Ireland. Edward considered Ireland to be yet another battleground in his campaign against Norman England.

In 1569, Elizabeth I named Sir Moyses Hill as the governor of Olderfleet Castle. It was considered crucial to the success of a potential Tudor invasion of Ulster. Many more settlers would have landed in Ulster through Larne during the Plantation of Ulster after the Union of the Crowns under James VI & I in the 17th century. However, the area around County Antrim was not formally included in the 17th-century Plantation; rather, many Scots landed in the area through private settlement (as they had also been doing for centuries before).

Many Scots-Irish left the port of Larne for the New World in the 18th century. Friends Goodwill was the first emigrant ship to leave Larne in May 1717, bound for Boston, Massachusetts in the New England region of the present-day United States of America; a memorial in Curran Park honors her. In Larne, you can find the ancestors of the Scots and Irish who settled Boston centuries ago. During the failed revolt of 1798, United Irishmen were the first to seize the town, which was located in the county of Antrim. Almost mainly Presbyterian, the Protestant rebels from this area flooded Larne about 2 a.m. on June 7 and clashed with government forces. After the garrison fled in the sight of the surprise attack, the rebels marched off to join McCracken in the Battle of Antrim.

Loyalists who were against the Home Rule Act 1914 started making plans for armed uprising that year. During the Larne Gun Incident In the middle of the night, ships loaded with German, Austrian, and Italian weaponry and ammunition sailed into the ports of Larne and Bangor, from which they were spread across Ulster. This was a watershed moment in the fight for Ulster Unionist self-determination, and the eventual establishment of Northern Ireland was a direct result of this victory.