Armagh

Armagh is an ancient ecclesiastical centre on a hill in the heart of Ulster. Tradition associates its church with Saint Patrick, and its archbishops claimed a leading place in the Irish church. The cathedral and the streets around it made the town a focus of religious authority through centuries of conflict and political change.

In the seventeenth century Armagh suffered during the wars that followed the rising of 1641, and its cathedral required rebuilding. In the eighteenth century Archbishop Richard Robinson undertook an ambitious programme to improve the city, commissioning public buildings and laying out new spaces. He also founded an astronomical observatory, bringing scientific work to the cathedral city. Its old ecclesiastical standing and the ambitions of its archbishops together shaped the appearance of Armagh.