Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Home to 11,545 people, this town lies in Newry, Mourne and Down, Northern Ireland. The average domestic rates bill is £1,364 a year.
Downpatrick’s strongest subject is cost of living (A+): homes sell for a median £181,200, about 3.3 times local household income. Its overall grade is B, better than 56% of UK towns. The ranking puts it #8 of 10 in Newry, Mourne and Down and #52 of 63 in Northern Ireland. Crime runs high: police record 44.1 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year, and 16.2 home and vehicle crimes. Only just over a fifth of UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people have more crime per resident. Health outcomes fall short of most towns: life expectancy is 79.4 for men and 83.8 for women. The rest of its grades are middling: B for schools and B for walkability.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry (LPS), 2022 to 2024 at early-2025 prices · crime, police.uk, averaged Sep 2023 to Aug 2026 · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2021.
This town's Cost Grade uses house prices and the domestic rates bill: Northern Ireland has no council tax, and no rents are published for its council areas. This town's Health Grade uses NISRA's life expectancy for its district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and two Census 2021 measures, bad health and disability, adjusted for age. Healthy life expectancy and the early-death and hospital measures English towns use aren't published for small areas in Northern Ireland. This town's School Grade uses GCSE results at the post-primary schools its children travel to, grammar and non-grammar, compared with schools across Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland publishes no primary school results. Northern Ireland has no Jobs Grade (no small-area income, claimant or job-access data is published) and no Hazards Grade (its flood maps aren't open data).
The 3 things Downpatrick does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Northern Ireland), ordered by how far Downpatrick is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The Historic Environment Division lists 78 buildings inside Downpatrick’s settlement, 3 of them in the top grade, and 3 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Downpatrick. Best known first.
CathedralDown Cathedralin town
MuseumDown County Museumin town
Abbey or prioryInch Abbey600 m outside town, to the northwest
Heritage railwayDownpatrick and County Down Railway100 m outside town, to the west
CastleCastle Bright4.6 km outside town, to the southAttractionAttractionSt. Patrick's Gravein townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Downpatrick.
Private renters make up just over a fifth of households, near Newry, Mourne and Down’s towns (23%) and higher than Northern Ireland’s towns (19%). It is the 4th most expensive of 10 towns of 2,500+ in Newry, Mourne and Down.
NISRA / Land & Property Services ward sale prices and domestic rates · NISRA Census 2021 tenure · OGL · The figure is NISRA’s median sale price for the wards around Downpatrick, 2022 to 2024, brought to early-2025 prices and weighted by sales.
Of its 12 schools, three are shown below, each with the reason. Downpatrick’s four primaries and three secondaries have 3,965 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Colmcille's Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 402 | – |
| Lecale Trinity Grammar SchoolLargest post-primary schoolPost-primary | Post-primary | 1,484 | D |
| Down High SchoolTop results in townPost-primary | Post-primary | 961 | A |
A year of reports to August 2026 adds up to 812 offences in Downpatrick and 350 cases of nuisance behaviour. Among the 645 UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, Downpatrick has more crime per resident than 78% of them. Anti-social behaviour, shown but not graded, came to 33.1 reports per 1,000, above both Newry, Mourne and Down’s towns (29.9) and Northern Ireland’s towns (20.7). Violence and sexual offences made up 49% of the total.
Not gradedAnti-social behaviour, shoplifting and other theft are shown but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident.
data.police.uk street-level crime · points inside the NISRA settlement boundary · OGL · The police category of violence and sexual offences includes harassment and stalking.
A disability affects 28% of people in Downpatrick. At the census, 9% of people here described their health as bad or very bad.
| Census 2021 | Downpatrick | Newry, Mourne and Down | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 77% | 77% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9% | 8.6% | 8.7% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 28% | 26% | 26% |
NISRA Census 2021, general health and disability · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area, 2022–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Scaled to its population, Downpatrick has 68 listed buildings per 10,000 people, higher than both Newry, Mourne and Down’s towns (55) and Northern Ireland’s towns (34). Its listed buildings include Downpatrick First (Non-Subscribing) Presbyterian Church, Grade A. At the top of the list, 3 are Grade A and 6 Grade B+.
HED list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 15% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
About two fifths of its commuters stay in Downpatrick for work. 84% of commuters drove to work at the census. The census counted 15% of workers working mainly from home.
NISRA Census 2021, method of travel to work · OGL
29% of adults hold a degree, about level with Newry, Mourne and Down’s towns (30%) and below Northern Ireland’s towns (32%). Children under 15 count for 20% of the people here. At 38.5, the median resident of Downpatrick sits in the middle of the age range.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Northern Ireland, 51% of residents are women.
| Downpatrick | Newry, Mourne and Down | Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 20% | 19% | 19% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 27% | 26% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 25% | 26% | 26% |
| 65+ | 16% | 18% | 17% |
| No qualifications | 25% | 26% | 25% |
| A levels or similar | 16% | 15% | 16% |
| Degree level | 29% | 30% | 32% |
NISRA Census 2021 · Newry, Mourne and Down and Northern Ireland: all residents of their settlements · Women and men: whole data zones, which approximate the town’s boundary · OGL
78 listed buildings in Downpatrick, 3 of them Grade I.
Southwell Charity School and Almshouses: Photo: Chief Judge Rico · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Gatehouse, New County Gaol: Photo: Chief Judge Rico · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Down Arts Centre (former Assembly rooms): Photo: Ardfern · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Northern Bank: Photo: Christine Johnstone · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
27 notable people were born in Downpatrick.
Conor Hazard: Werner100359, CC BY-SA 4.0 · E. Neville Isdell: World Economic Forum, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Margaret Ritchie: ©House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0 · Colin McGrath: Colin McGrath, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tim Wheeler: Drew de F Fawkes, CC BY-SA 4.0
The nearest settlements, from NISRA’s 2015 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downpatrick | 11,545 | — | B | A+ | D | C− |
| Killyleagh | 2,787 | 5.5 | B+ | A+ | B | C− |
| Ballynahinch | 6,164 | 9.3 | B− | A+ | C | C− |
| Saintfield | 3,588 | 10 | A− | A+ | A | C |
| Newcastle | 8,298 | 11 | C+ | A+ | C− | C− |
People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
That is 2.8 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Grade A buildings include Holy Trinity Cathedral. It also has 3 scheduled monuments.
Burglary was rare, with 12 reports in the year.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale in 2022 to 2024, at early-2025 prices, was £181,200, against £277,000 in the typical UK town. On cost of living it is the 28th most affordable of 63 Northern Ireland towns.
Northern Ireland has no council tax: homes pay domestic rates, set on the home’s capital value, and the rates also pay for water. The average bill in Newry, Mourne and Down is about £1,364 a year for 2026–27, against England’s average council tax per home of £1,868. Your own bill depends on your home’s value; check it with Land & Property Services on nidirect.
Town in Newry, Mourne and Down, Northern Ireland
Downpatrick is a settlement of 11,545 people, in the Newry, Mourne and Down council area. TownRatings uses NISRA’s settlements (the 2015 Settlement Development Limits) as Northern Ireland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council district, so its figures cover the town itself.
Built from NISRA geography and Census 2021
Sources: NISRA Census 2021, data zones best-fitted to the NISRA Settlement Development Limits 2015 (settlement totals from NISRA where it publishes them) · NISRA / Land & Property Services verified residential sales by ward, 2005 to 2024, new and existing dwellings (medians; the 2022 to 2024 headline brought to early-2025 prices with the LPS house price index, which runs to 2026) · Land & Property Services domestic rates paid by council, 2025-26, and Department of Finance rate poundages 2026-27 · data.police.uk street-level crime (Police Service of Northern Ireland), 36 months to August 2026, points inside the settlement boundary · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and NISRA Census 2021 general health and disability, adjusted for age · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils · Department of Education examination performance at post-primary schools 2024/25 and school-level enrolment data 2025/26 · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.