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
Dún Pádraig· Irish · main form · validated name
Downpatrick· English · main form
Place & story
The hill above the town
Down Cathedral stands on the Hill of Down beside the modern town, near the Saint Patrick Centre and Down County Museum. It remains a working cathedral as well as a place of pilgrimage. The grave traditionally associated with Patrick gives the site its best-known religious connection. The institution's continuing use belongs to its history as much as the antiquity claimed for the site.[2]
Folklore & tradition
The disputed funeral
Patrick Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, in its 1891 edition, tells how people of Armagh and Down contested possession of Patrick's body. In the story, the Armagh party sees a vision of the coffin travelling towards their own city and follows it, leaving the people of Down to bury the saint. The apparent procession later vanishes. Kennedy's version belongs to a nineteenth-century collection of stories.[3]
People & connections
Thomas Russell at the gaol
The former county gaol supplies a very different association. Down County Museum's account identifies the building as a prison constructed between 1789 and 1796 and used until the 1830s. Its best-known prisoner was the United Irishman Thomas Russell, executed at the gateway in 1803. The site connects Downpatrick with the aftermath of rebellion as well as with the administration of debt, punishment and transportation. Russell's final imprisonment and execution are specific local events, distinct from the legendary narratives attached to the neighbouring cathedral.[4]
Both censuses use the same 2015 settlement boundary. These exact counts cover usual residents in the settlement, rather than local government districts or historic counties. Other NISRA tables may use approximate counts.
View population figures
DOWNPATRICK — Settlement 2015 (N11000276) — census population
placenames