Kinallen

Kinallen (from Irish: Cionn Álainn, meaning "beautiful headland")[1][2] is a small village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is four miles from Dromore and two miles from Dromara.

Kinallen Irish: Cionn Álainn
Location within County Down
Population	557 (2001 Census)
Irish grid reference	J252497
• Belfast	20 miles
District	Banbridge
County	County Down
Country	Northern Ireland
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	DROMORE
Postcode district	BT25
Dialling code	028, +44 28
UK Parliament	Lagan Valley
NI Assembly	Lagan Valley

The village has a shop, Post Office, Day Care center, Fair Hill Primary school and Nursery Unit, and an Orange Hall. Also First Dromara Presbyterian Church is located just beyond the townland boundary.

Education

There is one school in the village, Fair Hill Primary School and Nursery Unit (formerly Kinallen Primary School).

The local secondary school students often attend Friends' School or Wallace High in Lisburn, Banbridge Academy or Dromore High School.

Transport and communications

The village surrounds a crossroads, where the Banbridge-Dromara and Lisburn-Katesbridge roads meet. In recent years, the village has seen much development, from only 300 residents in 1991 to 557 residents in 2001. This is mainly due to attractive house prices in the rural zones of Belfast's commuter belt, helped by Kinallen's desirable position in the countryside and its nearness to both the A1 dual-carriageway and the M1 motorway.

The village's recent popularity as a place to live has turned the area into a dormitory settlement for both Belfast and Lisburn. Despite the growth in population, and the resulting increase in traffic, there has been little done to improve the area's infrastructure. The roads leading from the A1 Belfast-Dublin dual-carriageway are of low quality. The 'Kinallen Road' section of the route, itself unclassified, is very narrow in places and has dangerous bends and junctions.

The village is served by Translink Ulsterbus bus service 26, which runs between Dromara and Lisburn through Kinallen, Drumlough and Annahilt. At peak times, the service extends to the Europa Bus Centre in Belfast city centre.

Kinallen's official telephone dialling code, like the rest of Northern Ireland is 028. Kinallen lies within the Dromara telephone exchange area, meaning local numbers commence with 9753xxxx. Until the 2000 Big Number Change, the village constituted part of the 01238 area code (Saintfield/Ballynahinch/Dromara).

Culture

The village boasts a flute band who meet in the local Orange Hall, holding weekly band practice between 8:00pm–10:00pm every Wednesday evening. The band was formed in 1837 making it one of the oldest such bands in Northern Ireland and takes part in more than fifty parades during the summer marching season, travelling all over Northern Ireland and Scotland. The band holds a yearly parade in nearby Dromore on the last Friday in May.

2001 Census

Kinallen is classified as a small village or hamlet by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 500 and 1,000 people). On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 557 people living in Kinallen. Of these:

• 29.5% were aged under 16 years and 7.9% were aged 60 and over
• 50.6% of the population were male and 49.4% were female
• 6.3% were from a Catholic background and 89.2% were from a Protestant background
• 1% are from African descent
• 1.3% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed.

For more details see: NI Neighbourhood Information Service

References

1. Placenames NI Archived 2012-06-11 at the Wayback Machine
2. Placenames Database of Ireland