The county is well watered by numerous streams. The principal are the Callen, the Tynan, and the Tallwater, flowing into the Blackwater, which, after forming the boundary between this county and Tyrone, empties itself into the south-western angle of Lough Neagh. The Tara, the Newtown-Hamilton, the Creggan, and the Fleury flow into the Bay of Dundalk. The Cam or Camlin joins the Bann, which, crossing the north-western corner of the county, falls into Lough Neagh to the east of the Blackwater. The Newry canal, communicating with Carlingford Lough at Warrenspoint, six miles below Newry, proceeds northwards through the county of Armagh for about 21 miles, joining the Bann at Whitecoat. The Ulster Canal commences at Charlemont on the River Blackwater, near its junction with Lough Neagh, proceeding through the western border of the county, and passing thence to the south-west by Monaghan and Clones into Upper Lough Erne, after a couse of 48 miles.

The geological features of the county are various and interesting. The granite of Slieve Gullion, an offset of the granite district of Down, is often used for millstones, being very hard and fine grained. The Newry Mountains and the Fathom Hills are also composed of granite. Around Camlough large beds of mica-slate exist. Slate quarries have been worked partially at Dorcy, Newtown-Hamilton, Creggan Duff, and in the neighbourhood of Crossmaglen. Lead mines have been worked, but without much success, in several parts of the county. There are extensive deposits of lignite in the district near Lough Neagh. The other mineral substances found are potters’ clay and a variety of ochres.

The total population in 1821 amounted to 197,427 souls. In 1831 the population was 220,134, and in 1841 it was 232,393, but in 1851 the numbers had declined to 196,085, and by the census of 1871 it was 179,260.

The land is in general but indifferently cultivated, yet owing to the occupation of the peasantry in the linen manufacture they are better lodged, clothed, and fed than in most other parts of Ireland. The cultivation of grain has been for some time slightly on the decrease, and the number of acres under flax diminished from 27,245 in 1866 to 7530 in 1872; but in the green crops there has been considerable increase. The total number of acres under crops amounted in 1872 to 172,550, viz., wheat, 10,599; oats, 68,487; barley, bere, and rye, 379; beans and pease, 254; potatoes, 32,799; turnips, 7998; other green crops, 3287; flax, 7530; meadow and clover, 41,164.

The farms are in general very small, and show less tendency to decrease in number than in most other parts of Ireland. In 1872 there were 6220 holdings of less than five acres each. Notwithstanding this, their owners are generally in circumstances of comparative comfort, owing to their employment in the linen manufacture. There are few* who do not keep at least one cow, or a few sheep; none but the poorest cottar is without a pig. The usual diet is oatmeal, potatoes, and milk-porridge, varied sometimes by salt-herrings. The better description of farmers use animal food, chiefly bacon and poultry.

The principal manufacture, and that which has given a peculiar tone to the character of the population, is still that of linen, though it has somewhat declined of late. It is noways necessary to the promotion of this manufacture that the spinners and weavers should be congregated in large towns, or united in crowded and unwholesome factories. On the contrary, most of its branches can be carried on in the cottages of the peasantry. The men devote to the loom those hours which are not required for the cultivation of their little farms; the women spin and reel the yarn during the intervals of their other domestic occupations. Smooth lawns, perennial streams, pure springs, and the open face of heaven, are necessary for perfecting the bleaching process. Hence the extensive bleachers dwell in the country with all their assistants and machinery. Such is the effect of this combination of agricultural occupations with domestic manufactures, that the farmers are more than competent to supply the resident population of the county with vegetable, though not with animal food; and some of the less crowded and less productive parts of Ulster receive from it a considerable supply of oats, barley, and flour. Apples are grown in such quantities as to entitle the county to the epithet applied to it, the orchard of Ireland.

The antiquities consist of cairns and tumuli; the remains of the fortress of Eamania near Armagh, once the residence of the kings of Ulster; the Dane’s Cast, an extensive fortification in the south-east of the county, extending into the county of Down; spears, battle-axes, collars, rings, amulets, medals of gold, ornaments of silver, jet, and amber, <kc., have also been found in various places. The religious houses were at Armagh, Clonfeacle, Killevy, Kilmore, Stradhailloyse, and Tahenny. Of military antiquities the most remarkable are Tyrone’s ditches, near Poyntz-Pass, Castle Roe, the fort of Navan, the castles of Criff-Keirn and Argonell, and that in the pass of Moyrath.

Armagh, together with Louth, Monaghan, and some smaller districts, formed part of a territory called Orgial or Urial, which was long subject to the occasional incursions of the Danes.

The county was made shire ground in 1586, and called Armagh after the city, by Sir John Perrott. When James I. proceeded to plant with English and Scotch colonists the vast tracts escheated to the crown in Ulster, the whole of the arable and pasture land in Armagh, estimated at 77,800 acres, was to have been allotted in sixty-one portions. Nineteen of these, comprising 22,180 acres, were to have been allotted to the church, and forty-two, amounting to 55,620 acres, to English and Scotch colonists, servitors, native Irish, and four corporate towns, —the swordsmen to be dispersed throughout Connaught and Munster. This project was not strictly adhered to in the county of Armagh, nor were the Irish swordsmen or soldiers transplanted into Connaught and Munster from this and some other counties.

Armagh is now divided into eight baronies, viz., Armagh, Fews Lower and Upper, Oneiland East and West, Orior Lower and Upper, and Tiranny. It contains twenty-nine parishes and parts of parishes, the greater number of which are in the archdiocese of Armagh, and a few in the diocese of Dromore. The county is in the Belfast military district, having barracks at Armagh and Newry. The constabulary force has its headquarters at Armagh, the county being divided into five districts. Assizes are held at Armagh, where the county prison, the county infirmary, and ,the district lunatic asylum are situated. The only savings bank in the county is at Armagh. There are two poor-law unions, Armagh (partly in Tyrone) and Lurgan (partly in Antrim and Down). The valuation of rateable property in 1872 amounted to £410,757. The chief towns are— Armagh, population in 1871, 8946; Lurgan, 10,632; Portadown, 6735; and part of Newry, with 5321 inhabb tants, the remainder of this place, with 9616 inhabitants, being in the county of Down. The county returns three members to the imperial parliament, two for the county generally,—constituency in 1873, 7044; and one for Armagh city,—constituency, 621.

In the towns and level parts of the county the Protestant religion, in its two principal forms of the Episcopal and Presbyterian, predominates; but the Roman Catholic faith is prevalent in the mountainous and less cultivated parts. By the census returns of 1871 the Roman Catholics number 85,057, or nearly one-half of the gross population. The number of children at school in 1871 amounted to 19,887, of whom 14,838 attended the various “National Schools.” There were in the same year twenty-one persons who knew nothing but the native Erse, and 3903 were able to speak both that language and the English.

Armagh, a city and parliamentary borough in the above county, 64 miles north of Dublin, in lat. 54° 20' 55 z, N., and long. 6° 37' 57" W. It derives its name of Ard-macha, or High-Field, from its situation on the sides of a steep hill called Drumsailech, or the Hill of Willows, which rises in the midst of a fertile plain. Of high antiquity, and, like so many other Irish towns, claiming to have been founded by St Patrick, it long possessed the more important distinction of being the metropolis of Ireland; and, as the seat of a flourishing college, was greatly frequented by students from other lands, among whom the English and Scotch were said to have been so numerous as to give the name of Trian-Sassanagh, or Saxon Street, to one of the quarters of the city. Of a synod that was held here as early as 448, we have interesting memorials in the Booh of Armagh. Exposed to the successive calamities of the Danish incursions, the English conquest, and the English wars, and at last deserted by its bishops, who retired to Drogheda, the venerable city sank into an insignificant collection of cabins, with a dilapidated cathedral covered with shingles. From this state of decay, however, it was raised by the unwearied exertions of Primate Robinson (otherwise Lord Rokeby), which, seconded as they have been by similar devotion on the part of his successors of the Beresford family, have made of Armagh one of the best-built and most respectable towns in the country. As the ecclesiastical metropolis of both the Anglican and Roman organisations, it possesses two cathedrals—of which the Catholic.is of the more recent construction—and two archiépiscopal palaces. As the county town it has a court-house, a prison, a lunatic asylum, and a county infirmary. Besides these, there is a fever hospital, erected by John George Beresford; a college, which Primate Robinson was very anxious to raise to the rank of a university; a public library founded by him, and containing upwards of 14,000 volumes; an observatory, which has become famous from the efficiency of its astronomers; and a number of churches and schools. Almost all the buildings are built of the limestone of the district, but the Anglican cathedral is of red sandstone. Population of the parliamentary borough in 1871, 8946.