{"id":573898776,"date":"2026-03-18T20:09:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573898776"},"modified":"2026-04-07T03:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:10:32","slug":"downpatrick-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2026\/03\/18\/downpatrick-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Downpatrick Head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our last stop of the day afforded us great views and a fine place to see the sunset. And we only had to go to a place that was so empty that four other people wandered up and it felt crowded and invasive. The italicized text below is copied directly from the signs installed there. <\/p>\n

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The headland of Downpatrick, or Ceann Dhun Padraig ‘the Headland of Patrick’s Fort,’ from its association with St. Patrick, boasts several distinctive monuments. These include Bronze-Age ring-barrows, early ecclesiastical sites, a promontory fort, and a Second World War ‘Look Out Post.” The most prominent is ‘St. Patrick’s Church’ which now houses a stylised statue of the saint. <\/p>\n

Christian gatherings were held here on the last Sunday in July and also on Good Friday. Several unique stone crosses used in these rituals have disappeared, as has a curious stone referenced alternatively as the “Lamb’s Head stone” or the “Anvil Stone.”<\/p>\n

Of the growling blow-hols, Poll na Sean Toinne – ‘the Hole of the Old Wave’ is the most impressive and the one most linked to history. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Standing over fifty metres in height and situated eighty metres off Downpatrick Head is the imposing sea-pillar known as Dun Briste – the Broken Fort. The surface of the pillar contains the ruins of an ancient residence which once had a land-bridge forming part of its fortification.<\/p>\n

Numerous folk tales tell how the pillar came to be separated from the mainland. Several mention an ancient “ogre-pirate” named either Geodruisc or Deedruisc, who, because of his nefarious activities was left stranded on the rock. In bygone days it was called Dun Geodruisc or D\u00fan Deodruise – ‘Geodruisc’s Or Deodruisc’s Fort.<\/p>\n

The Annals of the Four Masters note that in 1393 the land-bridge which joined the pillar and the mainland was washed away during a hurricane. As a result, a number of families were isolated but eventually rescued using “ships ropes.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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I liked this sign, which considers the old place through multiple lenses. <\/p>\n

Landscape is not an objective area of land or coastline or bounded space; it is perceived individually through the lens of personal memory and depends on the accepted beliefs through which it is interpreted. On Downpatrick Head there are a number of different landscapes, with the best example being the contrasting landscape of science and landscape of the paranormal, each interpreting differently the identical phenomena which can be seen and experienced there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Landscape of Science<\/strong><\/p>\n

The smoothly rising headland of Downpatrick Head is made up of the hundreds of layers of different sediments; sandstones, shales and limestone one over the other and resting undisturbed since they were laid down in a shallow sea, about 300 million years ago. The different rock types are due to the continually changing distance from the coast that the deposits were laid down. The coarse sediment carried out into the sea by rivers was deposited when the coastline was close at hand compacting into sandstone; deposits of finer sediment compacting into shales were deposited when the coastline was more distant while the limestone was deposited when the coastline was so far distant that no material carried by rivers from the land could reach that far. It is easy to forget the most obvious story in these rocks, that they still lie as they were laid down, still undisturbed after 300 million years. Contrast this with the rock formations just ten kilometres west along the coast where the 600 million year old rocks are now twisted and contorted, the strata often vertical, the result of the clash of continents half a billion years ago. In the soil overlying the rocks there is at least one large granite boulder, carried here from Sligo to the east by a glacier pushing westwards along the coast a mere twenty thousand years ago.<\/p>\n

Nor is the headland inactive today. Many of the classic features of marine erosion which can be observed here and at thousands of locations worldwide are ongoing. The power of the waves eat into weak sections of rock forming sea caves. At some stage massive waves blocking the cave mouth and pushing inwards create enormous air pressure inside which forced through cracks and fissures, loosens the strata and causes it to fall into the sea creating a blowhole as here at Poll a’ Sean Tine. Over time, the cave roof collapses leaving a narrow landbridge link to the mainland. When this bridge eventually collapses a seastack remains such as here at D\u00fan Briste. An historical reference to people having to be rescued from such a collapse in 1393 in this part of Mayo (a reference almost certainly to the collapse of D\u00fan Briste) gives some idea of the rapid rate of natural erosion of the headland. Dun Briste is today almost one hundred metres from the mainland and is approximately forty metres by fifteen in area. The remains of two houses survive on the seastack but even more dramatic was a field wall along the western edge with a low gap to allow sheep to pass into another field to the west!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Myth and Legend: the Landscape of the Paranormal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The landscape of the paranormal has a totally different interpretation of these phenomena. St. Patrick came to the headland to confront the pagan chieftain\/god Crom Dubh who lived there. Crom Dub attempted to throw Patrick into an eternal fire on the headland but Patrick scratched a cross on a stone, threw it into the fire which collapsed into the sea and is known as Poll a’ Sean Tine, the Hole of the Old Fire. Crom Dub seeing that he had met his match retreated into his fort but Patrick hit the ground with his crozier breaking the ground and leaving the broken fort, D\u00fan Briste isolated from the mainland, where, it is said, Crom Dubh died, eaten to death by midges. This is just one version of many competing legends of Saint Patrick and his adversary at Downpatrick Head. In some stories Crom Dubh is a pagan chieftain, a pagan god, a pirate, a robber. As well as Crom Dubh or Cormac Dubh, the names Geodrisg, Deodrisg and Leodrisg are used. In other stories, Poll a Sean Tine is called Poll a’ Sean Tonna, The hole of the old wave.<\/p>\n

The landscape of placenames is interestingly entirely based on the landscape of the paranormal with placenames such as Downpatrick, Poll a’ Sean Tine, D\u00fan Briste all taking their names from legend rather than science. The link to St. Patrick led to the headland being a place of ritual and pilgrimage on one of the four great pre-Christian divisions of the year, the Festival of Lughnasa as it is at Croagh Patrick. The ruin of what may have been a church was associated with the festival held on the last Sunday in July, but two Bronze Age barrows from the second millennium BC located on the headland and also used as part of the Christian ceremonials show that the sacred landscape of such ritual is more than twice as old as the Christian one from St. Patrick’s time.<\/p>\n

The Landscape of Military History<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a landscape of military archaeological and historical remains on the headland with surprisingly far-flung links abroad. A medieval or post medieval promontory fort on the east side of the headland gave the name Dun Phadraig or Patrick’s fort while Dun Briste the broken fort suggests that another fort existed before being lost to erosion (or Patrick’s crozier). Poll a’ Sean Tine was the scene of a tragic loss of life of rebels who had joined the French in Killala in 1798 and who were hiding out on ledges at sea level when the English redcoats were rounding up participants after surrender by the French. The redcoats stayed longer in the area than was expected, a storm blew up and the rebels were drowned in Poll a’ Sean Tine. This place of sanctuary, which had been used as a rebel refuge for decades, was only accessible by ropes.<\/em><\/p>\n

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There are other signs that briefly tell of some human element of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and the remnants of World War II-era installations, like a small watch house and one of the famous EIRE markers — which at 30 feet tall told fliers they were over neutral territory, and also became navigational cues. <\/p>\n

There’s also a large sign where they’d asked local students to write about the legends tied to this place. One story told a lot is about an ogre (or a mean man) that lived here, and how St. Patrick either separated that huge rock with his walking stick or prayed to God to put a barrier between the two. In some of the tellings, the ogre-man starves to death, sometimes he’s still there, sometimes he was eaten by midges. There was another that featured a robber who stole some of St. Patrick’s cattle. <\/p>\n

Another story is about how the people stranded on that rock escaped by weaving the thatch from their rooms to vessels down below to rescue them. That seems like a big reach, but better than ogres. Another version has people flying kites up to the stranded people, so that they could haul up rope ladders. <\/p>\n

There’s a story about rebels hiding in the blowholes, that one doesn’t end well. If you remember the version of St. Patrick’s story where he led all off the snakes off the island, there’s a telling here that he trapped them all on D\u00fan Briste. One kid said his Grandad told him there is a lobster living under D\u00fan Briste. It tries to eat the lobster pots. <\/p>\n

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We’re not giants or cattle rustlers, but I would like to go over there. I bet the sunsets look different on that high island. Some local experts took a helicopter trip over there some years back. Apparently that doesn’t happen. Maybe, if we stick around, someone will realize we’re due. We were there for almost 90 minutes, but no one came by to offer us a lift over there. <\/p>\n

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So we enjoyed the sunset, and then drove into the night, thinking of what we might see tomorrow, and where we would eat tonight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our last stop of the day afforded us great views and a fine place to see the sunset. And we only had to go to a place that was so empty that four other people wandered up and it felt crowded and invasive. The italicized text below is copied directly from the signs installed there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,32,62,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573898776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-history","category-ireland","category-photo","category-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573898776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573898778,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573898776\/revisions\/573898778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573898776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573898776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573898776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}