Speedwell Centre

Speedwell Trust at Parkanaur

Parkanaur Manor House

The  Speedwell Activity Centre is situated in Parkanaur Forest Park, near Dungannon. The forest is home to an array of biodiversity, including a rare herd of white fallow deer, one of only two herds in Ireland. Parkanaur Manor House is a large, rambling romantic Tudor Revival house which has evolved through the years. It was built by the Burgess family and remained within the ownership of the family right up to 1955 when it was vacated and the family moved to England. The house lay vacant until 1958 when it was bought by millionaire ‘Thomas Doran’ for £13,000 as a gift for his friend ‘Rev Gerry Eakins’. Tom Doran had originally come from near Castlecaulfield but had emigrated to the USA as a teenager. There he made his fortune as the founder of ‘The Cheerful Greetings Card Company’. The reason for purchasing the house was to facilitate his friend Rev Eakins in developing a new centre for the education of young adults with special needs. The house reopened in 1960 as ‘The Thomas Doran Training Centre’, (Parkanaur College) and much of the house continues today in this role. Much of the original estate is in the ownership of the DARD Forestry Service.

Speedwell Activity Centre

Mrs Jean Kelly founded Speedwell in 1991 to bring children together from Catholic and Protestant primary schools to participate in environmental programmes with a vision of building bridges between two communities which were torn apart. The Trust began using a small room in the courtyard before increasing demand led to the refurbishment of outhouses in 1996 transforming them into classrooms.  Well over 200 nursery, primary and special needs schools have been participating in programmes here since then.