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DROGHEDA |
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DROGHEDA , clustered on either side of the river and tightly
contained between two hills, is an enjoyable place in its own right:
easily accessible and surprisingly unused to tourism. The precise grey
stone of which the town is built, combined with its post-industrial
decay, give it a slightly forbidding air, but it has a vitality that
suits it well. The architectural legacy of successive civilizations
forms the main attraction. The ancient Millmount mound and the Boyne
itself echo the early habitation you'll see further upstream, but the
history of Drogheda as a town really began with the Vikings , who
arrived in 911 AD and founded a separate settlement on each bank. By
bridging the ford between these two, the Danes gave the place its name -
Droichead Ātha , the Bridge of the Ford. By the fourteenth century, the
walled town was one of the most important in the country, where the
parliament would meet from time to time; remnants of medieval walls and
abbeys lie like splinters throughout the town. As ever, though, most of
what you see is from the eighteenth century or later, reflecting the
sober style of the Protestant bourgeoisie after the horrific slaughter
of Drogheda's defenders and inhabitants by Cromwell. The important
surviving buildings of this age - the Tholsel, courthouse and St Peter's
Church - have mellowed romantically and stand among the nineteenth-century
flowering of triumphal churches, celebrating the relaxation of the
persecuting stranglehold on Catholicism, and the riverside warehouses
and huge rail viaduct that welcomed the industrial boom years. More
recent development, with riverside laneways and suburban housing estates,
has affected the flavour of the place very little: the past somehow
seems stronger here than the present.
The Town
The Meath side of town, south of the river, is probably the best place
to start exploring Drogheda. Standing on Millmount hill , you can enjoy
an unimpeded panorama, with the bulk of the town climbing up the
northern hill-slope opposite. From this viewpoint, it's clear how the
tight-fitting street pattern of the medieval town gave scant room for
expansion over succeeding centuries. The backs of the houses stagger
down to the River Boyne in a colourless wash of daubed mortar.
Millmount's Martello Tower also offers an excellent overview, both in a
literal sense and through the excellent display in the local museum
sited here. The tower (key from the museum) was severely damaged by
bombardment during the 1922 Civil War (there's a large picture of the
attack in the museum), but in any event it is the earthen mound on which
it stands that gives the place its real importance. The strategic value
of the site was recognized from the earliest times: in mythology the
mound is the burial place of Amergin , the poet warrior, one of the sons
of Mil of the Milesians who are reckoned to be the ancestors of the
Gaels. He arrived in Ireland from northern Spain around 1498 BC and
later defeated the Tuatha D? Danann at Tailtiu (Telltown). Another
belief is that the mound houses a passage grave. However, the tumulus
has never been excavated to find out which story - if either - is true.
Not surprisingly, the Normans chose the same strategic eminence for
their motte in the twelfth century, and later a castle was built,
standing until 1808 when it was replaced by the tower and military
barracks you see today. The quickest way up here on foot is via the
narrow flight of steps by Dina's corner shop, directly opposite St
Mary's Bridge . This is near enough the spot where the original bridge
was built by the Danes.
Next to the fort is the barracks square whose eighteenth-century houses
now shelter arts and crafts enterprises, and, best of all, Millmount
Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-5.30pm, Sun 2.30-5pm; £1.50/¬1.90), one of
Ireland's finest town museums, in the best chaotic style of the genre.
Within a glass cabinet in the foyer hangs a topographical quilt showing
much of Ireland's east coast - note the two thousand or so grains of
French knots that depict the sandy shores. Next to this is a quilted
cummerbund of the Georgian houses in Fair Street, very pleasing and
precise in its eighteenth-century detail. When you get out into the town
you'll find that the area depicted (Fair Street, along with William,
Lower and Upper Magdalene streets and Rope Walk) is still rich in period
buildings and architectural detail. The Guilds Room follows, hung with
three large drapes (the only surviving Guilds' banners left in the
country) celebrating the broguemakers', carpenters' and weavers' trades.
The broguemakers' banner - in effect an early advertisement - is
particularly wonderful. It depicts St Patrick, who in legend rid the
country of snakes, standing with his foot on a serpent: even the saint
needs some protection, however, so he is sturdily shod in a pair of good
Irish brogues. King Charles I also has a bit part, hiding up an oak tree
to symbolize both the use of oak for tanning the leather and the
security offered by a good pair of shoes (Charles escaped from
Cromwell's troops in 1651 by hiding in an oak tree). The carpenters' and
weavers' banners are more straightforward, the former depicting
compasses and blades, the latter with shuttles clasped in leopards'
mouths. In the next room there's a similar theme, with the trade banners
of fishermen, labourers and bricklayers. The bricklayers' shows the
barbican at St Lawrence Gate as their proudest achievement. This, again,
is something worth seeing once you get out into the town: still standing
and perfectly preserved its two round towers flank a portcullis entry
and retaining wall. It is the most significant part of the town walls to
have survived (part of the West Gate also exists, and a buttress and
embrasure can be seen just south of the gate), and arguably the finest
such surviving structure anywhere in Ireland.
Heading down the museum stairs you come to a series of displays of a
more domestic and industrial nature. The last heavy manufacturing
industry left Drogheda in 1986. The exhibits record the sources of its
former prosperity: linen and alcohol - at one time the town had sixteen
distilleries and fourteen breweries. Next to a case charting the history
of the linen trade and a painting of the ship that used to ply between
Drogheda and the English coast is a vessel from a much earlier period in
the town's long history: a Boyne coracle , a recent example of the type
of circular fishing boat in use from prehistoric times right up to the
middle of the twentieth century. This one has a framework of hazel twigs
and a leather hide taken from a prize bull in 1943. There's also a fully
equipped period kitchen , pantry and scullery. Among the artefacts
displayed are an 1860 vacuum cleaner (a man would wind the suction
mechanism from outside the house); a tailor's hen and goose irons
(clothes irons named for their various shapes and sizes), which would be
heated in the fire (hence the phrase "too many irons in the fire"); a
settle bed (preferred by the Irish peasant because it would be next to
the warmth of the dying embers and could sleep two adults lengthways and
four or five children acrossways). A vast array of other everyday
miscellany is also displayed, including an eccentric collection of
geological samples gathered by a Drogheda resident whose wife finally
insisted he should give them to the museum.
On the top floor are a small picture gallery and some rooms devoted to
the Foresters and Hibernian societies, both nineteenth-century
benevolent institutions set up to provide sickness benefits, burial
expenses and the like for the poor. Perhaps ironically, given Drogheda's
manufacturing history, the temperance movement was strong here, and one
of the banners carries the exhortation "Hibernia be thou sober".
A little further down Mary Street is St Mary's Church, which now houses
the recently opened Drogheda heritage centre (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat
noon-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; tel 041/9831153; £2.50/¬3.17). The centre caused a
furore locally on its opening by displaying the death mask of the town's
arch-nemesis, Oliver Cromwell, whose forces breached the city's walls
right at this point. While the exhibits are far from inspiring, the
low-budget video does offer a surprisingly revisionist account of the
town's traumatic history and there is a fine coffee shop attached.
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