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County

Down

An Dún

Down’s coastal inlets and inland routes connect religious centres, market towns and communities that crossed county boundaries.

Recorded locationDown54.39795° N · 5.90639° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Approximate recorded location · Logainm.ieOpen in OpenStreetMap ↗

The name

dúnfort

These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.

An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.

Recorded forms

  • An Dún · Irish · main form · validated name
  • Down · English · main form

Place & story

Coast and neighbouring counties

Lewis’s 1837 account places Down between the Irish Sea, Belfast Lough, Antrim and Armagh. It distinguishes the Ards peninsula east of Strangford Lough from Dufferin on the western side. These are useful geographical relationships: places facing the same lough may belong to different districts, while the water can connect communities as well as separate them. The county’s history cannot be represented by one coastal town alone. [2]

Several centres of authority

The directory discusses Ulidia as an older regional label and describes separate earlier jurisdictions, including Lecale and the Ards. It also records uncertainty about when these were consolidated into the county. That caution should be retained rather than replaced by one confident foundation date. Downpatrick’s religious and county-town roles, and Bangor’s abbey and later settlement, belonged to different local histories within the broader county. [2] [3] [4]

A boundary through an urban community

Newry offers a practical example of a place crossing county labels: Lewis locates parts of it in both Down and Armagh. A family address using Newry consequently requires a parish or more exact locality before a county-based search can be trusted. The same principle applies to historical regional names such as Lecale. Preserve them, the denomination and the record date. Older tribal conjectures and foundation traditions in the directory are not independently established etymologies or evidence of an individual family’s descent. [5]

Geographic information

Place type
County
County
Down
Coordinates
54.39795, -5.90639 (approximate)
Mapped area
2,498.11 km²
Logainm ID
100012 ↗

People & family history

Census figures refer to the matched historical census area for each year. Boundaries and spellings can change over time.

1926 census

This year is outside the available dataset’s coverage. This does not indicate a population of zero.

Explore this county

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Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Down. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. County Down — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  3. Downpatrick — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  4. Bangor, County Down — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  5. Newry — A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis · 1837
  6. Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-09-19. How this page was prepared.