The spiritual capital of Ireland for 1,500 years and the seat of both Protestant and Catholic archbishops, Armagh is the most venerated of Irish cities. St Patrick called Armagh 'my sweet hill' and built his stone church on the hill where the Anglican cathedral now stands. On the opposite hill, the twin-spired Catholic cathedral (started in 1840) is flanked by two large marble archbishops who look mildly across town.

Many of the public buildings and the Georgian townhouses along the Mall are the work of Francis Johnston, a native of Armagh, who also left his mark on Georgian Dublin. The builders of Armagh delighted in the warm coloured local limestone that makes the city glow on the dullest day. They called it 'Armagh marble'. The archbishop's palace and the courthouse are good examples.

When it's polished, the slabs of pink and yellow and red limestone are made into doorsteps and pavements - like the glowing pink pavement on the Mall. You will also see plenty of it in the Catholic cathedral.

The present Anglican cathedral is mostly a 19th-century restoration round the 13th-century shell. Thackeray admired the new building when he came this way in 1842, and he specially liked the monuments which then, as now, included ones by Roubiliac, Chantrey, Rysbrack and Nollekens.