Downpatrick Courthouse

on the parapet]] The site currently occupied by the courthouse is thought to have been previously occupied by St John the Evangelist's Priory, sometimes referred to as "the Monastery of the Irish", which was established by Saint Malachy in the 12th century. The current building, which was designed by Hugh Darling of Dublin in the Neoclassical style, was completed in 1735. It was substantially rebuilt to the designs of the county surveyor, Henry Smyth, after a major fire in 1855. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of nine bays facing onto English Street; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forwards, featured a single-storey porch with a round headed…