Town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland

Ballymena

Ballymena built London's modern Routemaster, gave the US a president's father, and sits beside the hill where St Patrick tended sheep as a slave.

Key information

County: County Antrim
Nation: Northern Ireland
Population: About 29,500 (2011 Census)
Known for: Wrightbus, Slemish, the 1859 revival, Liam Neeson
What locals are called: Ballymenians
Famous people: Liam Neeson, Willie John McBride, the Adair family
Football clubs: Ballymena United (the Sky Blues), who play at the Showgrounds

About Ballymena

The town that builds London's buses

If you have ridden a modern red double-decker in London, there is a fair chance it came from Ballymena. The New Routemaster, the curvy bus launched in 2012 with its rear platform and three doors, was built here by Wrightbus. The firm began in 1946 as a small family business making vehicle bodies and gates, and grew into one of the best-known bus makers in Europe. Wrightbus has been through hard times, but its name is still on buses around the UK, and the town has become shorthand for British bus-building. It is a very Ballymena story: practical, inventive and rooted in making things. For much of the twentieth century the town's skyline was shaped by factories, with tobacco and tyre plants that employed generations before closing in the 2010s.

A mountain with a saint's story

A short drive from the town centre rises Slemish, a steep volcanic plug whose summit is 437 metres above sea level. Tradition says it is where the teenage Patrick, kidnapped from Britain and sold into slavery, spent six years minding sheep before he escaped. Every St Patrick's Day, pilgrims and walkers climb the hill to mark the legend. The view from the top stretches across the Antrim countryside, and on a clear day it feels as though the whole of the north of Ireland is laid out below you. Slemish is the landmark most people mean when they say 'the hill near Ballymena', and it gives the town a claim to one of Ireland's best-loved origin stories.

Scottish settlers and the linen market

Ballymena's name means 'middle townland', and the modern town grew in the early 1600s when Scottish settlers arrived under the Adair family, who received a grant of land here in 1626. They brought Presbyterian faith, farming skills and a way of speaking that still colours the local accent. The River Braid runs through the area, and the Braid valley gave the town one of its nicknames: Ballymena United's fans are the Braidmen's supporters in local shorthand. Linen was the great trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Flax was grown on local farms, woven in cottages and sold in the town's markets, and the money it earned built much of the Victorian town centre. Anyone who has heard a Ballymena accent knows the Scots influence. It is one of the most recognisable sounds in Northern Ireland, and often imitated.

The revival that started down the road

In 1859 a wave of religious revival swept Ulster, and its roots lie in the countryside around Ballymena. It began in the late 1850s with a small prayer meeting at Kells, a few miles away, and spread to thousands of people across the province. That tradition of evangelical Protestantism shaped the town for the next century and a half. Ballymena has long been described as part of Northern Ireland's Bible belt, with plenty of churches and a strong civic identity built around faith and community. The area also has a transatlantic link. The father of US president Chester Arthur came from Cullybackey, just outside the town, and Arthur Cottage, the family's restored ancestral home, is preserved there as a museum about the twenty-first president.

Famous faces and sporting heroes

Ballymena's best-known son is Liam Neeson, born in the town in 1952. He went on from local roots to Hollywood fame, with roles in Schindler's List in 1993, the Taken films and much more. On the rugby field, Willie John McBride, who grew up nearby and played for Ballymena, became one of the game's great figures. He toured with the British and Irish Lions five times and captained the unbeaten 1974 side in South Africa. Football belongs to Ballymena United, the Sky Blues, who play at the Showgrounds and have been a fixture of the Northern Irish league for generations. Match days there are as much a part of local life as Saturday shopping. Ballymena folk are famously straight-talking, and the town still has a country-market feel despite its factories and shopping centres. A good Ulster fry, with soda bread and potato bread, is as much a local staple as anywhere in the county.