Keady

Village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland
the village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland

Keady is a village and civil parish in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is south of Armagh and near the border with the Republic of Ireland. It is situated mainly in the historic barony of Armagh with six townlands in the barony of Tiranny. It had a population of 3,051 people in the 2011 Census. A tributary of the River Callan, known as the Clea, flows from its source in Clea Lake (also spelled as Clay Lake) through the middle of the village. The River Clea once powered Keady's millwheels. In the middle of the village, on the banks of the river, stands the Old Mill, which has been converted into workshops and offices.

For more information see The Troubles in Keady, which includes a list of incidents in Keady during the Troubles resulting in two or more deaths.

The railway arrived in Keady in 1909, with the opening of the Castleblayney, Keady and Armagh Railway line from Armagh, which was extended to Castleblayney in 1910. Keady railway station opened on 31 May 1909, closed for passenger traffic on 1 February 1932 and finally closed altogether on 1 October 1957. As a cross border line, when the Irish Free State was created in 1922, it lost all passenger traffic in 1923, with freight being withdrawn from the cross border section from Castleblayney to Keady in 1924. The Armagh to Keady freight service was withdrawn on 1 October 1957. There is a railway viaduct in Keady as well as one of the more interesting artifacts of Irish railway history, the tunnel for the Ulster and Connaught Light Railway. This was a proposal for a narrow gauge line from Greenore, County Louth to Clifden, County Galway, for which the tunnel under the railway embankment at Keady was built, but never used. Ulsterbus now use part of the tunnel as a bus garage.

Keady is classified as an intermediate settlement by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i. e. with a population between 2,500 and 4,999 people). On Census Day (27 March 2011) the usually resident population of Keady Settlement was 3,051, accounting for 0.17% of the NI total. Of these:
21.53% were aged under 16 years and 14.00% were aged 65 and over
48.90% of the population were male and 51.10% were female
87.45% were from a Catholic background and 10.32% were from a 'Protestant and Other Christian (including Christian related)' background

The civil parish contains the villages of Darkley and Keady.