Ballynahinch

A County Down market town still holding its market in the square every Thursday. It was the scene of the Battle of Ballynahinch on 12 June 1798, when government forces shelled about 4,000 United Irishmen for a day until they retreated, then burned 63 houses; the rebel leader Henry Munro was betrayed and hanged. Later the nearby spa wells drew visitors 'taking the waters'.

The McCartans held the area before the 17th century. After Patrick McCartan was executed in 1653 his lands went to Sir George Rawdon, who built two mills and founded the town around a market square, and in 1683 Charles II granted a Thursday market and two fairs. Scots settlers swelled the town, which traded in livestock, corn, potatoes and flax, and Sir John Rawdon, Earl of Moira, lived at Montalto, promoted the linen market and had the Market House built in 1795; by the end of the century the market took about £300 a week.

In June 1798 Nugent's troops bombarded the United Irish camp for a full day, and after the battle Munro was betrayed and executed. In 1802 Montalto and the town were sold to David Ker, who developed the spa wells two miles out. The RIC barracks was bombed by the IRA in 1920, and in 1986 Terence and Kathleen Mullan were shot dead at their home by the UFF. Prime Minister John Major visited in December 1996.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Ballynahinch ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Annadorn Dolmen · dolmen · 8 km
• Legananny · tomb · 10 km
• Legananny Dolmen · dolmen · 12 km
• Drumbo · round tower · 14 km
• Clough Castle · castle · 12 km
• Quoile Castle · castle · 13 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Struell Wells · Four holy wells in a rocky glen outside Downpatrick, with separate stone bath houses for men and women. A chapel is recorded here in 1306; hundreds came on Midsummer Eve and the Friday before Lammas. Nothing standing is older than about 1600.
• Nendrum Monastery · Three concentric drystone enclosures, a round tower stump, and a sundial from around 900. Beside them, dug out of the shore, the oldest excavated tide mill anywhere in the world — tree-ring dated to 619, rebuilt in 787.
• Slieve Donard — the guardian in the mountain · Patrick is said to have blessed Donard in the womb and told him he would not die, but would keep watch inside this mountain for ever. On the summit sits the highest passage tomb in Britain or Ireland, built around 3300 BC by people who left no name at all.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.