Downpatrick

Downpatrick stands among the low hills south of Strangford Lough. Its cathedral occupies the Hill of Down, a sacred site associated by tradition with the burial of Saint Patrick. An Anglo-Norman priory and cathedral developed around the older religious settlement, making the hill a place of pilgrimage and a prominent landmark above the town.

In 1538 the cathedral and shrine were destroyed during an English campaign in Ulster. For some two and a half centuries the church remained a ruin, although bishops continued to be installed within its walls. Restoration began in 1790 after an act of the Irish Parliament, returning the old cathedral to worship and giving new form to a building that had retained its place in the town's religious memory even while roofless.