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; GBP1.50/?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; GBP2.50/?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.
Your Tip for Drogheda
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Drogheda - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Drogheda - visit the main Drogheda forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Drogheda webguide section below! Thanks.
|
