Hilltown

EDITED EXTRACTS FROM THE TOPOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF IRELAND, 1837

HILLTOWN, a village, in the parish of Clonduff, barony of Upper Iveagh, County Down.

Hilltown is named after the Hill family, Earls of Hillsborough and Marquesses of Downshire.

It stands near the base of Eagle Mountain, and at the intersection of the mountain road from Newry to Bryansford with that from Rathfriland to Rostrevor, two miles south of Rathfriland.

Main Street, Hilltown (Image: W A Green/NMNI)

It is a handsome village, with a small but relatively well kept inn [the Downshire Arms], strikingly indicating the care which its noble proprietor, the Marquess of Downshire, has bestowed on the improvement of his estates, and the fidelity with which his lordship's views have been promoted by his agent, W E Reilly Esq.

Hilltown ca 1830 (historic OS map).  Click to enlarge

In the grant of it to the Hillsborough family it is called Carquillan.

There is a market on Saturday and a large fair for cattle and linen yarn on the second Tuesday on every month.

Main Street, Hilltown (Timothy Ferres, 2023)

It is a chief constabulary police station.

The parish church of Clonduff having been destroyed in the war of 1641, a church was built here in 1766.

It is a large and handsome edifice with a tower, erected by aid of a gift of £338 from the late Board of First Fruits, and recently repaired by a grant of £230 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

The Northern Ireland Department for Communites Historic Buildings branch remarks that St John's parish church was

Financed by the Earl of Hillsborough (later Lord Downshire) and completed in 1766 (Archæological Survey erroneously says 1776). Shown on McClatchey’s map of 1767 as “new church”. The bell is inscribed ‘Thomas Rudhall Glocester Founder 1772’. Refurbished in 1830s at a cost of £220. The church is of significance in being the first building in Hilltown, a planned village developed in the later 1700s by the Earl.

Here is also a glebe house, with a glebe of 21 acres; a Presbyterian meeting-house; a RC chapel, and the parochial school, for which a house was built in 1824 by the Marquess of Downshire, who has endowed it with £10 per annum.

I paid Hilltown a brief visit in May, 2023, en route to Leitrim car park for a little hike to Tievedockdarragh Mountain.

Pubs are abundant in this little village, given that, during the 18th century, it was a hub for illicit liquor smuggled along the Brandy Pad in the Mournes.