In the 18th Century Lurgan along with the rest of Ulster gained a worldwide reputation as a producer of fine linen, which is made from flax. From time to time, the Government introduced incentives to encourage more people to grow flax.

In 1796 the Irish Linen Board published a list of people who had received bounties for planting flax. This was known officially as the “Spinning Wheel Premium Entitlement List”, but was generally called the “Flax Growers Bounty List”. Only the name, town and civil parish of the beneficiary was recorded, and there is no further details available. The barony was listed instead of the parish in a few of the records

Over 60,000 people in Ireland received incentives, of which over 40,000 were based in Ulster. Donegal and Tyrone had the highest number of recipients, reflecting the importance of flax in the local economy. People planting one acre of flax received four spinning wheels, and those who planted five acres received a loom. We have decided to show names for the whole of Armagh here to help with family history research.

We are currently building a database of names in all of the records shown here, but as you can probably imagine, this is a mammoth task and we are adding new names as often as possible. You can search through the names available in the search engine below. If you have any records for the Lurgan area that you would like us to publish here, please contact us via the link below.

We make this information freely available to genealogists and Family Historians, but at no time may this information be used on a pay site or sold for profit. Our thanks to all those who have made donations to the Lurgan Ancestry Project, which made the production of these records possible.

Click on a link on the right to see the records, or type a surname in the search box below.