Donard Park

It is also used as a starting point for ramblers to climb the Mourne Mountains and has a YMCA centre including camping facilities.

The local council have been petitioned to build a swimming pool in the park and had put in a request for a Northern Ireland National Cycling Velodrome Centre to be built there for the 2012 London Olympics.

[1] In 2008 local planners indicated they would not back the construction of the scheme in an area of outstanding natural beauty at the foothills of the Mournes.

During World War I members of the 10th Battalion of Royal Irish Rifles were stationed at Donard lodge in the park for training, before being sent to the Somme in France.

[3][4] During World War II members of the U.S. Army 5th infantry division were based in Donard Park in preparation for D-Day.