Coney Island

 

Coney Island is a four acre island that lies about half a mile from the shore at Maghery in the south west corner of Lough Neagh.

There are two stories as to how the island got its name. It may have been called Coney after a woman who lived on the island who was well versed in the art of healing or named after the many rabbits that lived on the island, ‘coney’ being the medieval English for rabbit.
 
 Coney gets its name in Irish (Inis Dubhaill – island of the Blackwater) from its position where the Blackwater flows into Lough Neagh. While Coney belongs to the parish of Tartaraghan, it is not a part of any of the nearby townlands.

As a result of excavations carried out in the early 1960s, it was found that Coney Island had been the scene of human activity from as long ago as 5000 BC. There was evidence of occupation of the island from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age and right through to the Early Christian period.  It also contains an Anglo Norman motte and a 16th century circular tower.

Coney Island has Christian links as it was the end point of St Patrick’s Road and there was a pin well on the island. Local tradition has it that Coney was where the monks caught fish to supply the monastery of St Peter and Paul in Armagh.