page_title: Castledawson
section_title: People
hierarchical_section_title: Castledawson / People
caption_attribution_description: Raith earthworks outside the village of Castledawson, Co Derry, N. Ireland. Taken by Mark McCann, 2004
context_page_description: Castledawson is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is mostly within the townland of Shanemullagh, about four miles from the north-western shore of Lough Neagh, and near the market town of Magherafelt. At the 2011 Census it had a population of 3,293.
context_section_description: Famous natives have included:
  James Chichester-Clark, a direct descendant of the Dawsons, who was the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1971.
  The poet Seamus Heaney, who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born at a farm near Castledawson in 1939, and was brought up in the nearby village of Bellaghy.
  Marian Donnelly, former President of the Workers' Party, was born in Castledawson in 1938.
  The singer-songwriter and producer Ciaran Gribbin.
caption: An ancient ráth at the southern edge of Castledawson
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