Downpatrick and the St. Patrick Center: The Burial Site of St. Patrick

We Americans are all Irish one day a year.  For most Americans, St. Patrick's Day is an excuse to drink too much and wear green.  The fact is that St. Patrick is a mystery to most Americans.  It isn't taught in school or even a topic in an undergraduate course in college.  Even though Western civilization, as we know it, was helped by this historically distant figure.   Our objective while in Belfast was to uncover this mystery, which was the main reason we ventured into Northern Ireland.

North Ireland had a strange tinge of tension in the air that we felt all over the city.  On the bus ride from Belfast to the town of Downpatrick, we talk to a young man who had been beaten up by two young English loyalists.  Technically, the war between the Protestants and Catholics is over.  It was still playing itself out at the street gang level between factions of younger hoodlums.


Downpatrick, about 50 kilometers south of Belfast, can be reached by bus in about an hour and a half.  It is a very scenic Irish town set against a backdrop of rolling green hills.  The St Patrick Center is a short two-block walk from the bus station.  We have an excellent lunch at an Irish Pub before touring the center, which sits at the base of the hill where the Church and gravesite are located.

In short, St Patrick is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and the country.  Then, some civility spread to Europe by sending Irish scholars and priests to the continent.  The center provides a marvelous museum of Ireland and its progression.  After touring the museum, we walked up the hill to view the Church and the gravesite.

Set beside a large cathedral lies St Patrick's grave and stone.  Although he is thought to be buried somewhere under the Church, this gravesite is a beautiful symbolic representation.  After a tour through the Church, we head back to the bus station and take the ride back to Belfast.