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DOW
apartment with two pointed windows, beyond which is
an apartment immediately under the roof, 36 feet in
length and very narrow, having that portion of it which
is under the tower rudely groined. In the south porch
a staircase leads from the apartment in which is St.
Doulough’s tomb, to a very small apartment, called St.
Doulough’s bed, 5 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2½ high,
and lighted only by a loophole; the entrance is ex-
tremely low and narrow; the roof is vaulted, and in
the floor is a small hole, through which a bell rope
appears to have passed. The roof of the church forms
a very acute angle, and the stones of which it is con-
structed are so firmly cemented that it is impervious to
water, though it has been exposed to the weather for
eight or nine centuries. This singular edifice comprises
within its narrow limits seven different apartments, two
staircases, and a great variety of windows of various
designs, and door cases all differing in character. Near
the church is a well, dedicated to St. Catharine, enclosed
within an octagonal building with a groined roof of
stone; of this building, with which a subterraneous pas-
sage communicated from the crypt in which is St. Dou-
lough’s tomb, the faces towards the cardinal points, in
which are loopholes, are raised to a second story and
crowned with a pediment, in which is a lancet-shaped
window; the door is on the south side, and the whole
is finished with a pyramidal dome, of which the upper
part is wanting. The interior of the building is circular,
and has three deep recesses in the walls, in which are
stone seats. In the centre of the area is the well, en-
circled by a ring of stone two feet in depth and 5 inches
thick on the edge. In each spandril of the arched ceil-
ing, and over each recess in the walls, is a sunken panel,
and the interior was formerly decorated with paintings
of scriptural subjects.
DOVEA, a parish, in the barony of ELIOGARTY,
county of TIPPEKARY, and province of MUNSTER, 4miles
(S. S. W.) from Templemore; the population is returned
with the parish of Inch, of which, for all civil purposes,
this is regarded as forming a part. A constabulary
police force has been stationed here. It is in the diocese
of Cashel; the rectory is impropriate in the Marquess
of Ormonde, in trust for charitable uses at Kilkenny;
and the vicarage forms part of the union of Clogher and
corps of the chancellorship of Cashel.
DOWN (County of), a maritime county of the pro-
vince of ULSTER, bounded on the east and south by the
Irish sea, on the north by the county of Antrim and
Carrickfergus bay, and on the west by the county of
Armagh. It extends from 54° 0’ to 54° 40’ (N. Lat.),
and from 5° 18’ to 6° 20’ (W. Lon.); and comprises
an area, according to the Ordnance survey, of 611,404
acres, of which, 502,677 are cultivated land, 108,569
are unprofitable bog and mountain, and 158 are under
water. The population, in 1821, amounted to 325,410,
and in 1831, to 352,012.
This county, together with a small part of that of.
Antrim, was anciently known by the name of Ulagh or
Ullagh, in Latin Ulidia (said by some to be derived from a
Norwegian of that name who nourished here long
before the Christian era), which was finally extended to
the whole province of Ulster. Ptolemy, the geographer,
mentions the Voluntii or Uluntii as inhabiting this re-
gion; and the name, by some etymologists, is traced
from them. At what period this tribe settled in Ireland
486
DOW
is unknown: the name is not found in any other author
who treats of the country, whence it may be inferred
that the colony was soon incorporated with the natives,
the principal families of whom were the O’Nials, the
Mac Gennises, the Macartanes, the Slut-Kellys, and the
Mac Gilmores. The county continued chiefly in the pos-
session of the same families at the period of the settle
ment of the North of Ireland in the reign of King James,
at the commencement of the seventeenth century, with
the addition of the English families of Savage and White,
the former of which settled in the peninsula of the
Ardes, on the eastern side of Strangford Lough, and the
latter in the barony of Dufferin, on the western side of
the same gulf. It is not clearly ascertained at what
precise period the county was made shire ground. The
common opinion is that this arrangement, together with
its division into baronies, occurred in the early part of
the reign of Elizabeth. But from the ancient records
of the country it appears that, previously to the 20th
of Edw. II., here were two counties distinguished by
the names of Down and Newtown. The barony of Ardes
was also a separate jurisdiction, having sheriffs of its own
at the same date; and the barony of Lecale was consi-
dered to be within the English pale from its first subju-
gation by that people; its communication with the
metropolis being maintained chiefly by sea, as the Irish
were in possession of the mountain passes between it
and Louth. That the consolidation of these separate
jurisdictions into one county took place previously to
the settlement of Ulster by Sir John Perrott, during his
government, which commenced in 1584, is evident from
this settlement comprehending seven counties only,
omitting those of Down and Antrim because they had
previously been subjected to the English law.
The first settlement of the English in this part of
Ulster took place in 1177, when Jphn de Courcy, one of
the British adventurers who accompanied Strongbow,
marched from Dublin with 22 men-at-arms and 300
soldiers, and arrived at Downpatrick in four days with-
out meeting an enemy. But when there he was imme-
diately besieged by Dunleve, the toparch of the country,
aided by several of the neighbouring chieftains, at the
head of 10,000 men. De Courcy, however did not
suffer himself to be blockaded, but sallied out at the
head of his little troop, and routed the besiegers. Ano-
ther army of the Ulidians having been soon after defeated
with much slaughter in a great battle, he became undis-
puted master of the part of the county in the vicinity of
Downpatrick, which town he made his chief residence,
and founded several religious establishments in its
neighbourhood. In 1200, Roderic Mac Dunleve, toparch
of the country, was treacherously killed by De Courcy’s
servants, who were banished for the act by his order;
hut in 1203 he himself was seized, while doing penance
unarmed in the burial-ground of the cathedral of Down,
by order of De Lacy, the chief governor of Ireland, and
was sent prisoner to King John in England. The ter-
ritory then came into the possession of the family of De
Lacy, by an heiress of which, about the middle of the
same century, it was conveyed in marriage to Walter de
Burgo. In 1315, Edward Bruce having landed in the
northern part of Ulster, to assert his claim to the throne
of Ireland, this part of the province suffered severely in
consequence of the military movements attending his
progress southwards and his return. Some years after,