Kilkeel

The southernmost town in Northern Ireland, lying below the Mournes, and home to the largest fishing fleet in the North. Its name comes from the old church above the town, built in 1388 and dedicated to St Colman of Mourne. The last burials in its graveyard, in 1916, were victims of a collision between two steamers in Carlingford Lough.

There are references to a Christian settlement here from the 11th century. The church was built in 1388 for St Colman of Mourne and is thought to have headed a group including Kilmegan and Kilcoo, though the area was thinly peopled. It was rebuilt in the 1600s, used as a school in the 19th century and then abandoned, and burials continued until 1916. Kilkeel grew slowly from a village into a town by the late 1700s; a kerbstone is inscribed 1772, and a map of 1777 already shows its five main streets. The parish population peaked at about 15,000 at the time of the Famine, then fell to about 11,000, with about 1,000 in the town itself.

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

• Greencastle, County Down · castle · 8 km
• King John's Castle (Carlingford) · castle · 13 km
• The Mint (Carlingford) · castle · 13 km

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

• Cooley Peninsula — the Brown Bull · Home of the Donn Cúailnge, the great brown bull Medb marched the armies of four provinces to steal.
• 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.