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WHO WE
ARE
First and Second Markethill
Presbyterian Church is one
congregation within the wider
Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
The word Presbyterian derives from the
word for Elders, and describes our system of Church government,
where each congregation has democratically elected leaders, or
elders.
The town of Markethill, so called because of the markets
and fairs once held there, and its position on a hill.
Markethill is seven miles from the Ecclesiastical City of
Armagh, ten miles from Craigavon and twelve miles from the
Frontier City
of Newry.
Markethill was
founded by a Scottish family, the Achesons of Gosford, or
Gooseford, Haddingtonshire (East Lothian), who received a grant
of 1,000 acres (4 km˛) from King James I in 1610. The Achesons
built a strong castle at Cloncarney around 1617, but it was
destroyed in the war of 1641. It was replaced with a manor
house, visited by
Jonathan Swift, in the late 1720s, who devised the existing
nature walks throughout the grounds, where he composed poems.
The manor house was destroyed by fire in 1811
and has practically
disappeared. In 1819,
Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, commissioned the
construction of
Gosford Castle.
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