18th June 2018. Bus at 7pm from Belfast via Carryduff, Saintfield and Crossgar to Downpatrick (population 11,000) 35 kilometres from Belfast.
Saint Patricks Grave.
St Patricks Grave is in the graveyard of Down Church of Ireland Cathedral. According to legend when St Patrick died, rival chieftains wanted him buried in their land. So the didpute was settled by putting the body on a wagon led by oxen and the burial place would be when the oxen stopped…which became Downpatrick. I have always been impressed by the modern family graves in the cemetry.
Downpatrick Gaol. now Down County Museum. Thomas Russell, United Irishman leader and subject of the poem “The Man From God Knows Where” by Florence Mary Wilson, was hanged here in 1803.
Vintage Post box,
The Mall, English Street showing the Gaol/Museum and further the Court House.
Court House.
The group of figures in Scotch Street commemorates Lynn Doyle, pseudonym of Leslie Montgomery (1873-1961) a comic writer who was born in Downpatrick. He wrote short comic stories set in the fictional town of Ballygullion
“The Silent Dog”.
I really liked Downpatrick, a nice place to be on a bright summer night. A walk from the bus station starting at 8pm to the Cathedral and St Patricks Grave, along the Mall to Scotch Street and back to the bus station for the last bus at 9.15pm
Ireland: The Final Frontier 