In ancient times, nearby Navan Fort (Eamhain Mhacha) was a pagan ceremonial site and one of the great royal capitals of Gaelic Ireland.

[5] Eamhain Mhacha (or Navan Fort), at the western edge of Armagh, was an ancient pagan ritual or ceremonial site.

Muirchú writes that a pagan chieftain named Dáire would not let Patrick build a church on the hill of Ard Mhacha, but instead gave him lower ground to the east.

Dáire rewarded Patrick with a great bronze cauldron and gave him the hill of Ard Mhacha to build a church.

A hoard seemingly lost by Vikings in the River Blackwater shows the high quality of metalwork being made in Armagh at this time.

[13] Armagh's claim to being the head church of Ireland was formally acknowledged at the Synod of Ráth Breasail in 1111.

[16] Archbishop Máel Patraic Ua Scannail rebuilt Armagh cathedral in 1268 and founded a Franciscan friary, whose remains can still be seen.

[11] During the 16th century Tudor conquest of Ireland, Armagh suffered greatly in the conflict between the English and the O'Neills.

Armagh was strategically important as it lay between the English Pale and the O'Neill heartland of Tyrone, and the town changed hands many times during the wars.

[17] In the 1560s, English troops under Thomas Radclyffe occupied and fortified the town, which was then attacked and largely destroyed by Shane O'Neill.

After the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598, the routed English army took refuge at Armagh before surrendering to Hugh O'Neill.

[17] By the end of the Nine Years' War, Armagh lay in ruins, as shown on Richard Bartlett's 1601 map.

[11] Following the Nine Years' War, Armagh came under English dominance and the cathedral came under the control of the Protestant Church of Ireland.

The cathedral was rebuilt under Archbishop Christopher Hampton and the town began to be settled by Protestants from Britain, as part of the Plantation of Ulster.

The educational tradition continued with the foundation of the Royal School in 1608, St Patrick's College in 1834 and the Armagh Observatory in 1790.

This ambition was finally fulfilled, albeit briefly, in the 1990s when Queen's University of Belfast opened an outreach centre in the former hospital building.

[19] On 4 September 1921, republican leaders Michael Collins and Eoin O'Duffy addressed a large meeting in Armagh, which was attended by up to 10,000 people.

[20] During the Troubles in Armagh, the violence was substantial enough for a stretch of road on the outskirts of the city to be referred to by one RUC officer as "Murder Mile".

From 1953, Armagh began to argue for the restoration of the status lost in 1840,[29] with several applications to the Home Office being made.

[30] The council used the appellation "city" unofficially until 1994 when, at Queen Elizabeth's personal request,[30] Armagh along with the Welsh town of St Davids was awarded the status.

Charles, Prince of Wales during a visit in July 1994 announced it had been granted to mark the 1,550th anniversary of the traditional date of Armagh's foundation by Saint Patrick,[26] and also "in recognition of [Armagh's and St Davids'] important Christian heritage and their status as cities in the last century".

[31] The award of city status is typically granted to a local authority body, and the letters patent was initially presented to dignitaries and Armagh District Council by Queen Elizabeth during a visit on 9 March 1995.

Armagh contains the lowest population of all the cities of Northern Ireland, and is sixth physically smallest in the UK.

The present-day, post-Reformation, Roman Catholic cathedral was constructed during the latter half of the 19th century and features twin 64 m (210 ft) spires, making it the tallest such structure in the county.

[35] It is especially rich in 17th- and 18th-century books in English, including Dean Jonathan Swift's own copy of the first edition of his Gulliver's Travels with his manuscript corrections.

[58][59] The partition of Ireland in 1922 hastened the railways' decline, and the GNR closed the Keady – Castleblayney section of the CKA in 1923.

When he was Minister for the Department for Regional Development, then MLA Danny Kennedy had indicated plans to restore the railway from Armagh station to Portadown.

The local GAA handball club is Eugene Quinn's, named after a player from the Armagh area who died on an attempted swim from Tory Island to mainland County Donegal.

[82][83] Armagh also holds the record for highest daily minimum temperature in Northern Ireland, at 20.6 °C (69.1 °F) on 31 July 1868.