Downpatrick Down
Downpatrick is the county town of County Down and the site of Down Cathedral, which contains what is believed to be the grave of St Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, making it one of the most important Christian pilgrimage sites in Ireland and the centre of the annual St Patrick's Day celebrations in County Down. The combination of the cathedral, the grave, the Down County Museum housed in the eighteenth-century jail and the surrounding landscape of the Lecale Peninsula gives Downpatrick a heritage richness quite out of proportion to its modest size.
Down Cathedral, substantially rebuilt in the nineteenth century on the site of a succession of earlier churches and a Benedictine monastery, stands on the hilltop that has been a place of Christian worship since the fifth century when St Patrick is believed to have established his principal church here following his return to Ireland. The large granite slab in the churchyard, inscribed simply PATRIC, marks the traditional grave site in a simplicity that contrasts with the elaboration of the later pilgrimage tradition.
The Down County Museum in the former eighteenth-century county jail provides an excellent account of the history of County Down from the prehistoric period through to the recent past. The cells and exercise yard of the jail are preserved alongside the museum displays and provide a physical reminder of the harsher aspects of eighteenth-century justice in a building that also housed United Irishmen prisoners following the 1798 Rebellion.