Walkers are being invited to tread the footsteps of the Vikings in Co Down as part of a new walking festival in Downpatrick next month.
The International Walking Festival will also relay the story of St Patrick and of the gruesome era of the 1798 rebellion.
It is a joint venture between the St Patrick Centre and Newry, Mourne and Down Council and will run from June 12-17.
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Those taking part will also have the chance to walk alongside Vikings in full costume and to canoe out to Inch Abbey and back.
Claire Torrens from the St Patrick Centre said their walks had been born out of necessity but they hoped to further grow their impact.
"During Covid, we developed our walks because we were an indoor attraction and we had to do it differently," she said.
"We're including three of our walks in the festival, two of them are led by Martina Purdy and Elaine Kelly.
"They'll take people around, one of them's a canoe-ing adventure too where you canoe over to Inch Abbey and back again, it's really, really beautiful.
"Some of the other ones we have, Kilbroney Ramblers Club, they're doing a walk up at Meelmore Lodge, so we're trying to include walks for all abilities."
The town's rebellious past will also form part of the adventures that walkers can go on.
"We've had buy-in from the Council, their heritage officer Linda McKenna is also leading a couple of walks for us to do with crime and punishment, because we have the old jail here in the courthouse and she's leading a walk on the 1798 rebellion," Claire said.
"The idea of the festival is to encourage more people to get out and enjoy what we have on our doorstep, it's that wellbeing aspect we really want to focus on.
"We're hoping that this will be an annual event that we can promote each year and we're hoping to start our own walking group here too at the St Patrick Centre."
There is fare for all the family too with a key event being the walk which will give people the chance to meet up with Vikings.
"Most of the tickets are free but we do have a limit on the amount of people that we can take on the walks," Claire added.
"On Saturday, we're having a walk called 'Valhalla: Walk of the Vikings' which is a family-friendly one where, which costs £5, we're encouraging people to dress up as Vikings and they'll meet at the medieval settlement at Ballyduggan and they'll meet Vikings there.
"Then they'll walk to the longship, kind of like that march back in time and then they'll come back again."
More information on the walks and how to sign up is available on the St Patrick Centre website.
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