Drogheda

Drogheda, Co. Louth, the largest urban centre within a day's ride of Dublin. Two walled settlements on the estuary of the Boyne were established in the 1170s by Anglo‐Norman grantees on opposite banks of the river, with the principal fortification, Millmount, a converted Viking fort, located within the smaller town on the south side. The boroughs were united into a single corporation in 1412 by which point they were linked by a bridge. Exceptionally strong fortifications were erected, with walls of over 1.5 miles in length; the surviving barbican known as St Laurence's Gate gives a hint of their scale. At the south‐eastern tip of the archdiocese of Armagh, Drogheda was for long the main episcopal residence for the primate at a time when much of his jurisdiction lay outside English control. Drogheda merchants, however, enjoyed a privileged trading position in late medieval Gaelic Ulster. Drogheda became in effect the second centre of the Pale; Poynings's Law (1494) was promulgated in one of the many 15th‐century parliaments held in the town.

Its role as outport of Ulster extended into more recent centuries, with the maritime links to Chester and later Liverpool underpinning the town's prosperity. During the Confederate War Drogheda remained in royalist hands; its fall to Cromwell in September 1649 (see drogheda, siege of) became the most notorious event of the Cromwellian reconquest.

Drogheda's resurgence as a commercial and manufacturing centre was delayed until the second half of the 18th century when it benefited from the attentions of its then political patron, Speaker John Foster. Coarse linen manufacture helped swell the population to over 15,000 by 1821, and the grain trade, flour milling, and brewing sustained prosperity until the mid‐19th century. Thereafter, despite preserving a diverse industrial base and good port facilities, it lost ground to its northern competitor, Dundalk, and remained in second place to it throughout the 20th century.

Bibliography

Casey, Christine, and and Rowan, Alisdair , The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993)

David Dickson