Downpatrick

Tradition holds that all three patron saints of Ireland (Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille) lie together on the hill beside the cathedral, under a granite slab laid there in 1900. John de Courcy took the town in 1177 and made it the capital of his private Norman earldom of Ulster.

Downpatrick is one of Ireland's oldest towns, named after a dún on a drumlin above the River Quoile, possibly Ráth Celtchair, the fort of an Ulster Cycle hero. Patrick is said to be buried on Cathedral Hill, where Down Cathedral now stands and his reputed grave is still visited; Saul, nearby, is linked with him. In the early 11th century the Dál Fiatach kings of Ulster built the great earthwork called the Mound of Down as their capital. Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, was killed in an ambush near the town in 1102, and St Malachy became bishop in 1137.

In February 1177 John de Courcy marched north from Dublin with 300 men and 20 knights and took the town by surprise. In 1183 he brought Benedictines from Chester, re-dedicated the cathedral to St Patrick, and claimed to have found the bones of Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille, which were reburied in the cathedral in 1196 — a discovery historians think he staged for political ends.

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

• Struell Wells · holy well · 3 km
• Ballynoe stone circle · stone circle · 4 km
• Ballyalton Court Cairn · tomb · 5 km
• Annadorn Dolmen · dolmen · 6 km
• St Cooey's Wells · holy well · 15 km
• Quoile Castle · castle · 2 km
• Bright Castle · castle · 7 km
• Killyleagh Castle · castle · 9 km
• Clough Castle · castle · 9 km
• Jordan's Castle · castle · 10 km
• King's Castle, Ardglass · castle · 10 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.