Maghera (/ˌmæhəˈrɑː, ˌmækəˈrɑː/ MA-hə-RAH, MAK-ə-RAH; from Irish Machaire Rátha, meaning 'plain of the ringfort') is a small town at the foot of the Glenshane Pass in Northern Ireland.

[4] In 1246 its bishop, Germanus O'Carolan (Gilla in Choimded Ó Cerbailláin), pleading the remoteness of Maghera, obtained sanction from Pope Innocent IV to have the see transferred to Derry.

A result was large-scale emigration to the American colonies (Charles Thomson, recording himself as from Maghera, signed the Declaration of Independence)[6] and, in the 1790s, the organising of the United Irishmen.

Despairing of reform, and determined to make common cause with their Catholic neighbours, on 7 June 1798 the United Irishmen mustered upwards of 5,000 men in Maghera.

But the poorly armed host broke up the following morning on news of the rebel defeat at Antrim and the approach of government troops.

With its own railway station, an embroidery factory, a busy weekly market and close proximity to Clark's linen mill in Upperlands, it was one of two major towns within Magherafelt Rural District.

Separate primary and secondary schools were built for Catholics and Protestants in the 1960s; new housing estates were constructed and motor cars forced a widening of many of the town's narrow streets[11] Maghera suffered violence during the Troubles.

Over the three decades from the end of the 1960s a total of 14 people were killed in or near the village Maghera, half of them members of the security forces and a further two as a result of family membership of the Ulster Defence Regiment.

Ulsterbus runs routes through Maghera, which includes the 116/a/b/d to Kilrea, Coleraine and Magherafelt, 212 from Belfast to Derry, 246 to Limavady and Eglinton and 278 from Monaghan to Portrush.