Part of the Craigavon Borough Council area, Lurgan is about 18 miles ( 29 km ) south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Dublin – Belfast railway line.

Presently Lurgan railway station is run by Northern Ireland Railways with direct trains to Belfast Great Victoria Street and as part of the Dublin-Belfast railway line.

Between Craigavon and Aghacommon is the Portadown – Lurgan railway line and Craigavon Lakes.

In 1893, the land was purchased by Lurgan Borough Council and opened as a public park in 1909 by Earl Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Armagh once had a well-developed railroad network with connections to, among others, Armagh City, Culloville, Goraghwood, Markethill, Vernersbridge, Tynan ( see History of rail transport in Ireland ) but today only Newry ( Bessbrook ), Portadown, Poyntzpass, Scarva, and Lurgan are served by rail.

The UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade was founded in 1972 in Lurgan by Billy Hanna, a captain in the UDR and a member of the Brigade Staff, who served as the brigade's commander until his shooting death in July 1975.

Several months prior to these killings, Mid-Ulster Brigadier Billy Hanna was shot dead outside his Lurgan home on 27 July 1975, allegedly by his successor, Robin Jackson.

The " blue men of Lurgan " were a pair of Lurgan men suffering from what was described as " familial idiopathic methaemoglobinaemia " who were treated by Dr. James Deeny in 1942.

About 1610, during the Plantation and at a time when the area was sparsely populated by Gaelic peoples, the lands of Lurgan were given to the English lord William Brownlow and his family.

Brownlow and his family were released by the forces of Lord Conway, and as the rebellion ended they returned to their estate in Lurgan.

Lurgan sits in a relatively flat part of Ireland by the south east shore of Lough Neagh.

Lurgan town commissioners were first elected in 1855, and they were replaced by Lurgan Urban District Council following the Local Government ( Ireland ) Act 1898.

Lurgan Town Hall is owned by Craigavon Borough Council.

For census purposes, Lurgan is not treated as a separate entity by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency ( NISRA ).

A fairly accurate population count can be found by combining the data of the electoral wards that make up the Lurgan urban area.

The dog was bought in Lurgan by the Brownlow family, and the song also mentions his owner Charles Brownlow, referred to in the lyrics as Lord Lurgan.

Mount Zion House in Edward St, formerly the St Joseph's Convent, is now a cross-community centre run by the Shankill Lurgan Community Association / Community Projects.

Lurgan town centre is distinctive for its wide main street, Market Street, one of the widest in Ireland, which is dominated at one end by Shankill Church in Church Place.

It was originally owned by the Brownlow family, and today is owned by the Lurgan Loyal Orange District Lodge.

The adjacent Lurgan Park, now a public park owned by Craigavon Borough Council, used to be part of the same estate.

As is common in Northern Ireland, most of the schools in Lurgan are attended mainly by children from one or other of the two main religious blocs reflecting the existence of deep-seated sectarian and political divisions in society.

At secondary level, schools attended by the Protestant / unionist community are Lurgan College, and Lurgan Junior High School ( formerly part of Lurgan College of Further Education ).

Lurgan is characteristic of many Plantation of Ulster settlements, with its straight, wide planned streets and rows of cottages.

They are known as the " Mid Ulster Derby " and Glenavon's current manager Gary Hamilton played for Portadown before joining the Lurgan Blues.

* 5 January 1991-Jervis Lynch ( 26 ), A Catholic Civilian, was shot and killed by the Ulster Volunteer Force ( UVF ) while at his home in Acres Road, Magheralin, near Lurgan, County Down.

In 2012 the senior girls 1st XI reached the final of the Ulster Senior Schoolgirls ' Cup and won the competition, beating Lurgan College 2-1.

The M1 motorway ( Northern Ireland ) was constructed to link the new city with Belfast and there were plans to replace the Lurgan and Portadown Railway Stations with a single high speed terminal in central Craigavon.

Lurgan has historically been an industrial town in which the linen industry predominated as a source of employment during the Industrial Revolution, and is said to have employed as many as 18, 000 handloom weavers at the end of the 19th century, a figure significantly higher than the town's resident population at the time.

Lurgan College, now a co-ed 14 – 18 grammar school, was established in 1873 as an all-boys school to provide what was known as ' classical education ' as opposed to the more practical vocational education on offer at the Model School.

Lurgan Golf Club is situated at The Demesne beside Lurgan Park and is a 18 hole challenging parkland course bordering on Lurgan lake.

* 18 October 1989-Robert Metcalfe ( 40 ), a Protestant Civilian was shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) while at his home in Drumnabreeze Road, Magheralin, near Lurgan, County Down.

* 24 November 1982: The killing, by an RUC undercover unit, of Michael Tighe and the wounding of his friend Martin McCauley at an IRA arms cache on a farm near Lurgan, County Armagh.

Lurgan is also situated by the M1 motorway connecting the town to Belfast.

It was named after the town of Lurgan in Northern Ireland.

Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Craigavon was designated as a new town in 1965, intended to be a linear city incorporating the neighbouring towns of Lurgan and Portadown.

The sort of dedicated bicycle and pedestrian paths that were built in Craigavon were also incorporated into newer housing areas in Lurgan, additional land in and around the town was zoned for industrial development, neighbouring rural settlements such as Aghacommon and Aghagallon were developed as housing areas, and there was an increase in the town's population, although not on the scale that had been forecast.

The textile industry remained a main employer in the town until the late twentieth century, with the advent of access to cheaper labour in the developing world leading to a decline in the manufacture of clothing in Lurgan.

The oldest part of the town, the main street, is built on a long ridge in the townland ( baile fearainn ) of Lurgan.

This has had a detrimental effect on the retail trade in Lurgan in the same way that out-of-town shopping developments in other parts of Northern Ireland have damaged other traditional town centres.

The original church was established at Oxford Island on the shore of Lough Neagh in 1411, but a new church was built in Lurgan on the site of what is now Shankill Cemetery in 1609 as the town became the main centre of settlement in the area.

It was eventually found to be too small given the growth of the town, and the Irish Parliament granted permission to build a replacement in 1725 one mile away on the ' Green of Lurgan ', now known as Church Place, where it stands to this day.

A club by the name of Lurgan Celtic was originally formed in 1903, with the obvious slant of aiming towards the Roman Catholic community of the town, adopting the name and colours of the famous Glasgow Celtic, a hugely popular club among the Irish Catholics population of Glasgow and the west of Scotland.

That point wasn't lost on Lurgan and in 2003 they locked the gates on their town centre ground and relocated to share Oxford United's ground on the edge of Lurgan at Knockramer Park, which offered better facilities for all.

Lennon was born in Lurgan, County Armagh and attended St Michael's Grammar School in the town.

The headquarters of the council is in Craigavon, on the shores of Lough Neagh, a new town built between Lurgan and Portadown.