Irish Monastic Tours
Irish Monastic Tours offers a variety of tours exploring the archeology and history of monastic Ireland and its saints. Dr Thérèse Cullen is an expert in Irish Studies, will lead people into the very landscape in which these great men and women trod. Tours can be designed to your own specification and tour dates can be arranged according to interest.Narrow Water Castle
Caisleán an Chaoil, in Irish, is a typical example of tower houses built throughout Ireland from the 14th to early 17th centuries, Narrow Water Castle stands on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough. Primarily used as an outer defence against a seaborne attack on Newry, it stands three stories high with turreted firing points and its walls are 5ft thick in places. A bridge was to have been built from the Castle across Carlingford Lough to County Louth but this has recently been shelved.
Murlough National Nature Reserve
The Murlough Nature Reserve was set up in 1967 by the National Trust. It was the first of its kind in Ireland. Its 697 acres of dune heath is the most extensive example of this habitat in Ireland and it is criss-crossed by a network of paths and walkways that facilitate ramblers and birdwatchers. Indeed, Murlough is one of the best vantage points for those interested in ornithology as there are many winter visitors who reside in the dunes, as well as native breeding species. The dunes also provide the perfect environment for rare species of flora, such as the pyramidal orchid and carline thistle.
Nendrum Monastic Site
Although folklore has suggested that it was St Patrick who founded the monastery at Nendrum, archaeologists have dated the remains to the 7th century at the earliest. What is visible now are the remains of a round tower, a ruined church with sun-dial and a graveyard, contained within concentric cashels (stone walls). Archaelogical digs at the site found slates with Celtic designs and they and other finds now reside at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. It is likely that the monastery was eventually sacked by the Vikings, who had settlements along nearby Strangford Lough.
Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Created in 1958 in Cultra, 8 miles outside Belfast, the “Folk Museum” is really two museums in one. The Folk Museum consists of a village, “Ballycultra”, which is a collection of buildings gathered together from all over Ulster and rebuilt brick by brick in the Museum grounds, which is 170 acres, of which a quite considerable amount is given over to exhibiting how life was lived in Northern Ireland in the early part of the 20th century. Traditional methods of tillage and animal husbandry are used throughout, using traditional tools and with the native breeds that were common at the time. The Transport Museum features buses, trains and cars from bygone days as well as bicycles, carts, a Shorts SC 1 aeroplane and the star of the show, a De Lorean DMC 12 car, as featured in the film "Back to the Future".
Silent Valley Reservoir
One of Northern Ireland’s most enduring tourist attractions is the Silent Valley reservoir, high in the Mourne Mountains, fed by a tunnel dug through Slieve Binnian. The reservoir is the main supply point for water for Belfast and most of County Down. However, the technology of digging the tunnel under the mountain or supplying fresh drinking water to the largest city in Northern Ireland is not what attracts most tourists to the site. They come for the stunning setting of the Silent Valley, set high up in the Mourne Mountains. There is a café on the site and well marked walks for all grades of walker are plentiful.
Down Cathedral
The reputed resting place of Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, the cathedral sits on a hill overlooking the town of Downpatrick. There is a recorded ecclesiastical presence on the site since the 12th century. After a number of incidents which saw the monastery demolished and rebuilt, it was finally closed in 1538 as part of Henry VIII’s policy of Suppression of the Monasteries and demolished a year later. It was restored again in 1818, though, as part of the work, a Round Tower on the site was demolished in or around 1790. Crosses from the 9th, 10th and 12th centuries are preserved in the Cathedral. The building today is mainly the original chancel from the 15th century with a vestibule and tower added.
Mount Stewart House
After buying the estate in 1744, the Stewart family expanded and developed what was known as Mount Pleasant throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Housing a large art collection, it was the ancestral home of many politicians, including Viscount Castlereagh, one of Britain’s ablest Foreign Secretaries and infamous in Ireland for his brutal methods in putting down the United Irishmen’s rebellion of 1798. The National Trust took over the gardens in 1957 and then the house was given to them in 1977. The gardens are open to the public throughout the year and the house can be viewed from April to September.
Scrabo Tower
Standing 120 ft high at an elevation of 540ft above sea level in an otherwise flat part of Northern Ireland, the views from the top of Scrabo Tower are stunning. The whole length of Strangford Lough and the Mourne Mountains can be seen, as well as the coast of Scotland. It was built in 1857 as a memorial to Charles Stewart, brother of Viscount Castlereagh and one of Wellington’s generals during the Napoleonic Wars. It was closed recently to repair damage done by water ingress into the stone fabric of the tower, but it has now reopened to the public.
Ballynoe Stone Circle
This is an ancient large stone circle, of diameter around 100 ft. It is a complex site, having been used, developed and adapted over a long period from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. A passage tomb and various cremation sites have been discovered within or near the circle and a kerbstone has been alluded to by many archaeologists. Most of the stones that make up the circle are of local Silurian grit, but some are of granite. The tallest of the stones is around 6ft. It has similarities to similar stone circles in Cumbria.
Slieve Donard
The highest point in Northern Ireland, Slieve Donard is also the second highest mountain in Ulster. At the summit are two cairns, one of them a passage tomb, the highest of its kind in Britain and Ireland. The mountain is mostly now used by hill walkers and climbers and by people walking the Mourne Wall, which was built over a 15 year period in the early 20th century. Historically, it is significant in that the two cairns were used as triangulation points for the mapping of Ireland by the Ordnance Survey in 1826.
