Happy St Patrick’s Day!
We want to wish you all a Happy St Patrick’s Day from everyone at Killowen Distillery.
This is a time of the year when we celebrate the contribution Ireland and her diaspora have made around the world while remembering our patron saint; Patrick.
As Patrick came to Ireland from a foreign land as a young man, many Irish have since made similar journeys over the centuries and have helped enrich the world with many of our customs and personalities, as such this is a perfect day to show compassion and help to others on the move today.
We hope you all have a ball with your friends, families or favourite bar tenders this weekend but before we go – we would love to tell you the story of St Patrick coming to the site that is now Killowen Distillery.
St Patrick first arrived in the area now known as County Down and set up camp around Downpatrick and Saul.
His area is now generally known as the Kingdom of Mourne …
It’s said, was made unwelcome by some local chief in this Low Mournes where we are today where we continued to abuse the good folk just across the river, Defiantly Patrick threw his sandal to mark out the ‘forbidden area’ and the footwear landed a distance of twelve Irish miles away at the Cassy Water where Killowen Distillery sits today. The Saint didn’t apply curses but he was indicating at least that this area was beyond his blessing and influence! THis likely explains our fighting spirit at Killowen Distillery.
Right up to more recent times this river formed a territorial division between the baronies and later it marked the administrative line between the Councils of Down and Newry and Mourne, before their recent amalgamation.
The story comes to life in Tom Porters version of the local legend, sure its no wonder County Down is the real capital of Irish Whiskey.
Boundaries of Mourne
On his way from Saul to Tara
Patrick stopped to rest one day
On a heather-covered hillside
Overlooking Dundrum Bay
And from the crystal mountain stream
That flows from Donard’s seat
He quenched his thirst, gave thanks to God
And bathed his aching feet.
He sat there on a granite slab
And looked across the Bay
And saw the lovely Mona’s Isle
A wheen o’ miles away.
The day was warm, the sky was blue
The larks sang loud and clear
When round the shoulder of a hill
He saw three men appear.
Now Patrick was a civil man
And he bid them time of day
He could see they looked uneasy
So he let them have their say.
They’d come, they said, from round the hill
Between the mountain and the shore
‘..but ours is not the happy land
That it always was before.
The folk there’s always fighting
They’re murderin’ each other.
We cannot do a thing with them
We need your help, dear brother.
If you could come and see if you
Can make them mend their ways
For if you don’t we’ll all be killed
It’s been goin’ on for days’.
‘I haven’t time to go,’ says he
‘But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.
I’ll stop this fighting here and now’.
And with that picked up his shoe
He stood there at the water’s edge
With his sandal in his hand
‘Blood!’ says he, ‘will ne’er be spilled
From here to where this lands.’
‘Stand back!’ says he. The men stood back
He flung with all his might
They watched the shoe fly through the air
Till it disappeared from sight.
They thought that it was lost for sure
But then they heard next day
It had landed in another stream
Twelve Irish miles away.
The fightin’ stopped right then and there
The blood it ceased to flow
It’s been known as the Kindly Mourne
Since that time long ago.
Those streams still mark the ends of Mourne
They both flow to this day
The one into Lough Carlingford
Th’other to Dundrum Bay.
