James Chichester-Clark, a direct descendant of the Dawsons, who was the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1971.
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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.
The trophy was first awarded to Moyola Park (from Castledawson in County Londonderry) when they beat Cliftonville (from Belfast) 1–0 in the final at Cliftonville Cricket Ground, Belfast on 9 April 1881.
The club, founded in 1880, hails from Castledawson, near Magherafelt, County Londonderry, and plays its home matches at the Mill Meadow, which has an artificial "3G" surface.