Co. Armagh

In January 1801 the question of who was patron of Armagh, a flourishing market town and centre of the linen trade, was a matter of debate. As the borough fell within the see of the primate of the established church, the archbishop of Armagh, he was commonly regarded as patron.

Armagh, the seat of the primate of Ireland, was dismissed as a ‘mere village’ in one radical source, but was, in fact, in ‘a very improving state’, partly owing to its linen market, which was rebuilt in 1829.Peep at the Commons (1820), 20; PP (1831-2), xliii. 1; (1835), xxviii. 242; S. Lewis, Top. Dict. of Ireland (1837), i. 66-69. In addition to the cathedral and archiepiscopal palace, it boasted a public library and observatory, and, according to Henry David Inglis, was