Armagh

Armagh in Ulster is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland and the seat of the archbishop who bears the title Primate of All Ireland. The hill above the town had been a pagan sanctuary, named Ard Mhacha, the height of Macha, after a Gaelic goddess, before Saint Patrick founded his principal church there in 445.

By the seventh century its monastery and school were foremost in northern Ireland, and in the early ninth century its scribes produced the Book of Armagh. Vikings first raided Armagh in 832, but the high king Brian Boru was buried there after Clontarf in 1014. A national synod confirmed Armagh's primacy in 1111.

The cathedral was rebuilt in 1268, but the Tudor conquest left the town in ruins by 1601. The church passed to the Protestant Church of Ireland, which rebuilt it under Archbishop Christopher Hampton.