Drum is one of the only Protestant-majority villages in the Republic of Ireland, and it carries the distinction quietly: an accordion band, two Orange Lodges meeting in the Protestant Hall, and a strain of Ulster-Scots culture that outlasted partition. It sits among the drumlins of west County Monaghan, where droim is Irish for ridge, between three small lakes. The reason to come is a level walk around the water.
The lakes and walking
Drum Lough lies to the north, Quarry Lough to the west and Long Lough to the south, so the village sits in a shallow bowl of water and farmland. The Drum Development Association, formed in 1996, built an amenity area at Drum Lough with support from Monaghan County Council, and put up interpretive signs marking the best spots to watch its well-known duck population; teal, swans and waders feed along the reed beds. The paths around the lake are level and suit families, buggies and wheelchairs. Early morning is the time to go.
Ulster-Scots heritage and village life
The Protestant Hall is the centre of things, home to two Orange Lodges and an accordion band, and the village holds its annual picnic and march each summer. A blue plaque on the hall remembers John Deyell (1775–1878), a Drum-born surveyor who emigrated and founded Millbrook in Ontario, Canada, one of several local men who left a mark across the water, along with the Hamilton, Ontario merchant Thomas Stinson and the Canadian politician Joseph Rutherford Dundas. In more recent politics, the government minister Heather Humphreys is from Drum.
The village keeps a full set of churches for its size. The Presbyterian congregation is one of the oldest on the island, tracing its roots to the early 1700s, though the present church was built in the 1820s. The Church of Ireland church is younger than it looks, put up in the early 1800s and enlarged in 1860, and there is a Free Presbyterian church, a Gospel Hall and a Protestant primary school. A community childcare centre, the Wee Drummers, rounds out village life.
Practical information
A minor road off the Monaghan-to-Cootehill route leads into Drum, with a free car park near the Drum Lough turn-off. The trails and lakes are open year round in daylight, and the outdoor areas are free. Public transport is thin, so a car or bicycle is the practical way in. Drum sits about 15 km south-west of Monaghan town and 10 km north of Cootehill.
Nearby stops
Drum is a quiet base for west Monaghan. Clones, with its ancient high cross and round tower, is about 10 km west; Dartrey Forest has longer woodland walks and monuments; and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, near Newbliss, is a working artists’ retreat in a converted country house. Cootehill has the nearest cafés and shops. Come on a weekday morning and you may have the lakeside path to yourself.