St Patrick's Country
The Following Information is from the
Official Site of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board
St Patrick's Grave, Downpatrick
When St Patrick came to Ireland
in 432 he meant to sail up the coast to county Antrim where, as a
young slave, he had tended flocks for six years on Slemish
mountain. But strong currents swept his boat through Strangford's
tidal narrows and he landed where the Slaney river flows into the
lough.
Nothing daunted by this change of plan, Patrick set about his
missionary business, starting with Dichu, the local chieftain.
Dichu was quickly converted and gave him a barn (sabhal
pronounced 'saul' in Gaelic) for holding services. Over the next
30 years Patrick converted the Irish to Christianity. He died at
Saul in 461 and was buried in Downpatrick.
According to the 8th-century hymn of St Fiacc, Patrick
received his last communion from St Tassach. You can see the
ruins of St Tassach's church, one of Ireland's earliest Christian
buildings, at Raholp near Saul. At Saul itself a replica of an
early church with a round tower marks the place where Patrick
preached his first sermon to the Irish.
From the sixth to the ninth centuries, missionaries from
Ireland - including St Columbanus and St Gall from Bangor and
monks from Movilla at Newtownards, another important monastery on
the Ards carried the light of Christianity into a Europe
languishing in the Dark Ages.
The late 12th century saw the building of the Cistercian
monasteries on Strangford's shores. Both Grey Abbey and Inch
Abbey, near Downpatrick, had filial connections with England and,
for nearly. 400 years the Cistercians of Strangford sailed the
Irish Sea, taking much needed Ulster corn, wheat, flour, fish and
salt to the beleaguered English abbeys of Holm Cultram in
Cumberland and Furness in Lancashire.
Sailing home to Strangford in 60-oar galleys heavily laden
with Cumberland stone and iron ore and steering by the sun and
stars, the sailor monks of the early Middle Ages risked death on
every journey.
Legananny: Northern Ireland's best known 'dolmen'
West of Strangford is the wide-streeted town of Ballynahinch
where 7,000 United Irishmen lost the decisive battle of the 1798
rebellion. South of Ballynahinch on the slopes of Cratlieve
mountain stands the Legananny Dolmen, one of Ireland's finest
neolithic tombs - country people called them 'giants' graves'.
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