Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [543]
Dufferin Arms ( 4482 1182; www.dufferinarms.co.uk; 35 High St; mains £8-15; noon-3pm & 5.30-8.30pm Mon-Thu, noon-8.30pm Fri-Sun) This comfortably old-fashioned pub, and the larger Stables Bar downstairs, serves decent pub grub, while the cosy, candle-lit Kitchen Restaurant offers a more intimate atmosphere. Bands play on Friday and Saturday nights from 9pm, with traditional sessions on Saturday afternoons.
GETTING THERE & AWAY
Ulsterbus service 11 runs from Belfast to Killyleagh (£4, one hour, 10 daily Monday to Friday, five Saturday, two Sunday) via Comber. Bus 14 continues from Killyleagh to Downpatrick (£3, 20 minutes, 10 daily Monday to Friday, five Saturday).
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DOWNPATRICK
pop 10,300
St Patrick’s mission to spread Christianity to Ireland began and ended in Downpatrick. Ireland’s patron saint is associated with numerous places in this corner of Down – he made his first convert at nearby Saul, and is buried at Down Cathedral – and, on St Patrick’s Day (17 March), the town is crammed with crowds of pilgrims and revellers.
Downpatrick – now County Down’s administrative centre – was settled long before the saint’s arrival. His first church here was constructed inside the earthwork dún (fort) of Rath Celtchair, still visible to the southwest of the cathedral. The place later became known as Dún Pádraig (Patrick’s Fort), anglicised to Downpatrick in the 17th century.
In 1176 the Norman John de Courcy is said to have brought the relics of St Colmcille and St Brigid to Downpatrick to rest with the remains of St Patrick, hence the local saying, ‘In Down, three saints one grave do fill, Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille’. Later the town declined along with the cathedral until the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Southwell family developed the old town centre you see today. The best of its Georgian architecture is centred on English St and the Mall, which lead up to the cathedral, but the rest of the town is a bit bedraggled and looking a little down at heel.
Orientation & Information
The bus station is on Market St (the main A25 road south towards Newcastle), on the southern edge of the town centre.
The tourist information centre ( 4461 2233; www.visitdownpatrick.com; 53A Market St; 9.30am-6pm Mon-Sat & 2-6pm Sun Jul & Aug, 10am-5pm Mon-Sat Sep-Jun) is in the St Patrick Centre, just north of the bus station.
Sights
The Mall is the most attractive street in Downpatrick, with some lovely 18th-century architecture, including Soundwell School, built in 1733, and a courthouse with a finely decorated pediment.
SAINT PATRICK CENTRE
This centre houses a multimedia exhibition called Ego Patricius ( 4461 9000; www.saintpatrickcentre.com; 53A Market St; adult/child £4.95/2.55; 9.30am-6pm Mon-Sat & 10am-6pm Sun Jun-Aug, 9.30am-5.30pm Mon-Sat & 1-5.30pm Sun Apr, May & Sep, 10am-5pm Mon-Sat Oct-Mar, 9.30am-7pm St Patrick’s Day), charting the life and legacy of Ireland’s patron saint. Occasionally filled with parties of school kids, the exhibition uses audio and video presentations to tell St Patrick’s story, often in his own words (taken from his Confession, written in Latin around the year AD 450, which begins with the words ‘Ego Patricius’, meaning ‘I am Patrick’). At the end is a spectacular widescreen film that takes the audience on a swooping, low-level helicopter ride over the landscapes of Ireland.
DOWN CATHEDRAL
According to legend St Patrick died in Saul, where angels told his followers to place his body on a cart drawn by two untamed oxen, and that wherever the oxen halted, was where the saint should be buried. They supposedly stopped at the church on the hill of Down, now the site of the Church of Ireland’s Down Cathedral ( 4461 4922; The Mall; admission free; 9.30am-4.30pm Mon-Sat, 2-5pm Sun).
The cathedral is a testimony to 1600 years of building and rebuilding. Viking attacks wiped away all trace of the earliest churches, and the subsequent Norman cathedral and monasteries were destroyed by Scottish raiders in 1316. The rubble was used