“Three saints do rest upon this holy hill,
St. Patrick, Bridget, and Columbkille.”
This would seem to justify in a measure the claim, though the rhyme is pretty bad.
Jeremy Taylor was for a time Bishop of Down, as was also Thomas Percy, celebrated for his famous edition of the “Reliques of Ancient Poetry.”
There are many historical and ecclesiastical remains in the immediate neighbourhood, including the Cistercian Abbey of Inch, founded in 1187 by John de Courcy, and the celebrated Wells of Struell, supposedly of great virtue for the lame, the halt, and the blind. To-day their efficacy seems somewhat dimmed, as one does not hear of any remarkable cures which have recently taken place.
About the only convenient way to reach Armagh,—Ireland’s most ancient and famous seat of learning,—when making the coast tour of the north of Ireland, is from Belfast.
Armagh, about which so much has been written by all manner of pen-wielders, and about which so much is yet destined to be written, is one of the most attractive towns in Ireland, albeit it is not on the seacoast or on an important waterway.
Newcastle, in the minds of many, is merely the home of “The best golf-links in Ireland.” This is perhaps a sign of the advanced age in which we live, but Newcastle, forty miles north of Dublin, can lay claim to more than that.
Newcastle, as a tourist point and “a beauty-spot,” really exists by means of, and on account of, Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in Ulster, which hangs its 2,796 feet right over the little seacoast town, and provides non-golfing visitors with a continual field for pleasant excursions. The beautiful estate of Donard Lodge lying on the slope of the mountain is, too, a great attraction, as also are Castlewellan, the seat of the Earl of Annesley, and the Earl of Roden’s domain of Tollymore Park; and as these three estates enclose or command most of the beautiful mountain and forest scenery for which Newcastle is noted, they really form the irresistible attractions of the place. The whole range of the beautiful blue Mourne Mountains can be seen from Castlewellan, which lies on the side of Slieve-na-Slat.
Not far from Newcastle is Rostrevor, a pretty ittle village with a church-spire nestling among the trees and overhanging the picturesque coast-line of Carlingford Lough.
Much morbid interest is usually awakened by the recollection of certain events which took place in the neighourhood. At Bloody Bridge was a terrible massacre in 1641; Mourne Park and Mourne Abbey are generally famous spots; the village of Killowen, from which the late Lord Russell of Killowen chose his title, contains the house where Pat Murphy, the Irish giant, was born, and the ruined chapel where the celebrated Yelverton marriage took place in 1861.