museums downpatrick

The only Irish Standard Gauge 1600mm (5'3'') working Railway Museum. The Terminus 150 metres from St Patrick's Heritage Centre. Housing steam and diesel locomotives, century old carriages, rebuilt signal cabin and engine shed. The railway carries passengers over 1m and is currently being extended to an eventual total of about 11km, both southwards to Ballydugan and northwards across the marshes and the River Quoile to the tranquil 12th century ruins of Inch Abbey.

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This is a community museum helping to explain the history and environment of County Down. It occupies the restored buildings of the old Down County Gaol, built between 1789 and 1796. This is the most complete surviving Irish Gaol of its type and period. Its best known prisoner was the United Irishman, Thomas Russell, who was hanged at the gateway in 1803. The building ceased to function as a prison in the 1830s, after a new gaol was built nearby. For the next 150 years it had a chequered hi...

The place-name Downpatrick comprises two elements - dun, an early Irish fortified site (on which the present Cathedral was erected), and the name of Ireland's National Apostle. Some say St. Patrick was buried here, but there is no early tradition to substantiate the claim, and the inscribed stone allegedly marking the Saint's burial place just south of the Cathedral dates from as recently as 1900. Indeed, very little is known of the early history of the site until the 12th century, when a churc...