Find Things To Do In Down

Down is a former county in eastern Northern Ireland that existed until 1973. It was bordered on the north by Belfast Lough, on the east by the Irish Sea, on the south by Carlingford Lough, on the west by old County Armagh, and on the west by former County Antrim (northwest). Down covered 952 square miles (2,466 square kilometres) and had three high ground regions. The Mourne Mountains (Slieve Donard, 2,789 feet [850 metres]) are comprised of Eocene (38,000,000-year-old) granite, whereas the Caledonian granite mountains of Ballynahinch are in the centre (Slieve Croob, 1,755 feet). The terrain slopes eastward to the Ards Peninsula, containing Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea), a huge tidal inlet, and westward to the Newry Basin and the River Bann. From historic central County Down, a band of glacially deposited ovoid hills (drumlins) stretches westward. The geology is primarily Silurian, with a lot of slate and sandstone. The climate is mild, with annual precipitation ranging from 65 inches (1,650 mm) in the Mournes to less than 35 inches in the east and north. A shallow stony loam predominates in the southern slopes of the north, despite the fact that the soils are highly productive. The Giant’s Ring, south of Belfast, has evidence of prehistoric habitation. A cromlech, or circle of stones, exists there, surrounded by a large rampart, and there is a well-preserved souterrain, or underground chamber, near Newcastle. St. Patrick began his mission in Ireland (AD 432) at Saul, and a monastic school flourished in Bangor starting in the sixth century. A rock commemorates the alleged burial of the saint in the grounds of Downpatrick Cathedral, and his spring and bath buildings are maintained at Struell near Downpatrick. Dromore was Down’s historic ecclesiastical capital. The Anglo-Norman John de Courci conquered Down in the late 12th century, and several of the mounds that formed the basis of his forts still exist. The eastern portion of the county is ringed by castles (for example, Dundrum Stronghold, a Norman castle, and Jordan’s Castle near Ardglass). Despite the fact that English influence waned in the late Middle Ages, it remained on the peninsula of Lecale, which lies between Dundrum and Downpatrick.  Parts of Down were colonised by English and Scottish adventurers later in the Tudor period, and despite the fact that the county was not included in James I’s Plantation of Ulster project, there was a considerable inflow of Scottish colonists in the 17th century. The county was divided into the districts of Banbridge, Down, Ards, and North Down, as well as sections of Castlereagh, Lisburn, Craigavon, and Newry and Mourne, in the 1973 administrative restructuring of Northern Ireland.