Parkgate is a small village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in County Antrim

County Antrim

County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. It lies at the foot of Donegore

Donegore

Donegore is the name of a hill, a townland, a small cluster of residences, and a civil parish in the barony of Upper Antrim, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Donegore lies approximately 5 miles east of Antrim town. The largest settlement in the parish is the village of Parkgate...

 Hill, near the Six Mile Water

Six Mile Water

The Six Mile Water is a river in southern County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was historically called the Ollar and is known in Irish as Abhainn na bhFiodh. The Six Mile Water is an indirect tributary of the River Bann, via Lough Neagh...

. It is about mid-way between Ballyclare

Ballyclare

Ballyclare is a small town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 8,770 people in the 2001 Census...

 and Antrim

Antrim, County Antrim

Antrim is a town in County Antrim in the northeast of Northern Ireland, on the banks of the Six Mile Water, half a mile north-east of Lough Neagh. It had a population of 20,001 people in the 2001 Census. The town is the administrative centre of Antrim Borough Council...

 town. It had a population of 646 people in the 2001 Census

United Kingdom Census 2001

A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....

. It lies within the Borough of Antrim.

Places of interest

Near Parkgate is a holestone with the hole being about 5cm in diameter at its narrowest and situated around waist height in the stone. It is associated with marriages, where the bride and groom would hold hands through the hole during the ceremony. There is an old legend regarding a black horse that inhabits the field in which the holestone is situated. According to this legend a young couple were married at the stone, but the groom committed an act of adultery on their wedding night. For this act he was cursed by the stone to spend eternity as a horse, never dying, and never able to leave that field unless the gate is left open.

Joseph's belt

Literature

It was the site of the Cats For Peru hoax in 1870, related in Arthur McKeown's 1998 book, The Man From Peru. While McKeown's book is cast as a storybook, a primer for students of English as a second language, local historians attest to the truth of the story. See, for example, Where the Six Mile Water Flows by Jack McKinney (Friars Bush Press 1991).

2001 Census

Parkgate is classified as a small village or hamlet by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (ie with population between 500 and 1,000 people).
On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 646 people living in Parkgate. Of these:

• 26.7% were aged under 16 years and 14.8% were aged 60 and over
• 50.3% of the population were male and 49.7% were female
• 4.0% were from a Catholic background and 92.4% were from a Protestant background
• 2.0% of people aged 16-74 were unemployed.

External links

• The Man From Peru