Bangor

Sister cities

• Virginia Beach
• Bregenz

History

Bangor has a long and varied history, from the Bronze Age people whose swords were discovered in 1949 or the Viking burial found on Ballyholme beach, to the Victorian pleasure seekers who travelled on the new railway from Belfast to take in the sea air. The city has been the site of a Gaelic Irish monastery renowned throughout Europe for its learning and scholarship, the victim of violent Viking raids in the 8th and 9th centuries, and the new home of Scottish and English planters during the Plantation of Ulster. The Annals of Ulster says that the monastery of Bangor was founded by Saint Comgall from Antrim in the year 555, while other annals give the year as 558. It was where the Antiphonary of Bangor (Antiphonarium Benchorense) was written, a copy of which can be seen in the town's heritage centre. The monastery had such widespread influence that the city is one of only four places in Ireland to be named in the Hereford Mappa Mundi in 1300. The monastery, situated roughly where the Church of Ireland Bangor Abbey stands at the head of the city, became a centre of great learning and was among the most eminent of Europe's missionary institutions in the Early Middle Ages. At Bangor, Comgall instituted a rigid monastic rule of incessant prayer and fasting. Far from turning people away, this ascetic rule attracted thousands. When Comgall died in 602, the annals report that three thousand monks looked to him for guidance. Named Bennchor Mór, "the great Bangor", to distinguish it from its British contemporaries, it became the greatest monastic school in Ulster as well as one of the three leading monasteries of Celtic Christianity. The others were Iona, the great missionary centre founded by Columba, and Bangor on the Dee, founded by Dinooth; the ancient Welsh Triads also…

Geography

Bangor lies on the east coast of Northern Ireland, on the south shore of the mouth of Belfast Lough, north east of central Belfast. Bangor city includes the following townlands: *Balloo () *Ballycroghan () *Ballygrainey Ballygrainey railway station *Ballyholme (probably meaning "townland of the river meadow") *Ballykillare () *Ballymaconnell () *Ballymacormick () *Ballymagee () *Ballyree () *Ballyvarnet, historically 'Ballyvernan' () *Carnalea () *Conlig (, referring to a standing stone on Runestone Hill) *Rathgill or Rathgael () The sea area to the north east of Bangor is Ballyholme Bay, named for the township of Ballyholme in the east of the town. During World War II the bay was used as a base for American troops training for the Normandy Landings. Two ships have been named SS Ballyholme Bay. In 1903 a Viking grave was found on the shore at Ballyholme Bay: it contained two bronze brooches, a bowl, a fragment of chain and some textile material. It has been said that "Ballyholme Bay is a sheltered bay and studies have suggested that it is one of the best landing places on Belfast Lough and would therefore have made a good location for a Viking base. It is possible that the burial was associated with a Viking settlement in the area." In 1689 Field Marshal Schomberg landed with 10,000 troops either at Ballyholme Bay or at Groomsport, a little further east.