placenamesCregagh
An Chreagaigh
A childhood house, a protected playing field and the nearby hillside landscape preserve different parts of Cregagh’s story.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Chreagaigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cregagh · English · main form
Place & story
George Best’s childhood home
George Best grew up at 16 Burren Way on the Cregagh estate, living there from early childhood until he left for Manchester United as a teenager. Landmark East, the EastSide Partnership’s property company, bought the house in 2011 to preserve its association with him. Its later presentation included family and football memorabilia, replicas and stories, allowing an ordinary terraced house to become a record of a celebrated footballer’s upbringing. [2]
Cregagh Green
Best practised football on Cregagh Green near his home. Fields in Trust records its protection as a space for recreation, linking the footballer’s early development with the value of an accessible local pitch. The green was also twinned with Flanders Peace Field in Belgium, associated with the Christmas truce of 1914. That later connection gave a familiar neighbourhood playing space an additional role in remembrance and community sport. [3]
The glen and Lisnabreeny
Above Cregagh, the wooded glen leads into the Lisnabreeny landscape on the Castlereagh hills. A hilltop rath survives as evidence of an earlier fortified homestead. Lisnabreeny House was the home of poet Nesca Robb and later served as a youth hostel and army headquarters before restoration for Lagan College. A memorial nearby marks the site of a temporary cemetery for American servicemen during the Second World War. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Down
- Barony
- Castlereagh Upper
- Civil parish
- Knockbreda
- Coordinates
- 54.56918, -5.91238 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413232 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cregagh. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- George Best House: preservation by Landmark East, 15 August2018 · EastSide Partnership
- Spotlight on Cregagh Green, 12 July2019 · Fields in Trust
- Lisnabreeny and Cregagh Glen: landscape and history · National Trust
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2019-10-08. How this page was prepared.