[3][4] Also nearby is Legannany Dolmen, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) to the north near the village of Leitrim, on the slopes of Slieve Croob.

[citation needed] According to the Sunday Times Insight Team, the entire village (the population then was given as 819) was bound over to keep the peace for a year in 1953 after disorder at an Orange walk.

For example, in January 1980, three members of the Ulster Defence Regiment were killed in a Provisional Irish Republican Army land mine attack on their mobile patrol near Castlewellan.

[11] Throughout the course of the Troubles, the area had a significant paramilitary presence, mostly involving Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) activity.

[citation needed] In 2009, the Real Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility a car bomb which had been abandoned in the area.

The arboretum in the park was begun in 1740 and contains plants and trees from several different countries, including Spain, Mexico and Wales;[13] the 'Castlewellan Gold' form of Leyland Cypress – originating from a single mutant tree in the arboretum and widely propagated from the 1970s – was selected by the park director, John Keown, being first named Cupressus macrocarpa Keownii, 1963.

The Celtic Fusion International Musical Arts Festival was held annually in the town for a number of years, starting in 2002.

[citation needed] Castlewellan is classified as an intermediate settlement by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with a population between 2,500 and 4,999 people).

[1] Of these: In the 2001 census, Castlewellan was also classified as an intermediate settlement by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)[23] (i.e. with population between 2,250 and 4,500 people).