County Louth
Lú
- IrishLú
- ProvinceLeinster
- County townDundalk
- Local governmentLouth County Council
- Area827 km²
- Population139,703 (2022)
- Highest pointSlieve Foye, 587 m
Drogheda
Cromwell's army reached Drogheda early in September 1649. The governor, Sir Arthur Aston, had about three thousand men and refused every demand to surrender.
On the eleventh the town was stormed through the breach at the third attempt. Aston and his officers fell back to the Millmount. Cromwell wrote that he ordered them all put to the sword, and that he forbade his men to spare any that were in arms in the town.
He reckoned about two thousand were killed that night, and near a thousand more in St Peter's church, where they had fled for safety. He called it a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches.
The record shows Cromwell's own count, in his letter to the Speaker six days later.
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Monasterboice
A monastic site with a round tower, ruined churches and high crosses.
Muiredach's Cross is five and a half metres tall and complete. Its inscription asks a prayer for Muiredach, the abbot, who died in 924. At the foot of the shaft two cats are at play.
The West Cross is taller, at six and a half metres. It is the tallest high cross in Ireland.
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Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Born in Carlingford on the third of April 1825, the son of a coastguard. At seventeen he went to America, and within two years he was an editor of the Boston Pilot.
Back in Ireland he wrote for the Nation and joined the Young Irelanders. After the rising of 1848 failed he fled to the United States.
In 1857 he moved to Montreal. He became one of the Fathers of Confederation, and turned hard against the Fenians.
On the seventh of April 1868, after a late sitting of parliament, he was shot dead in front of his house. Patrick James Whelan was hanged for it. That it was a Fenian plot was widely believed and never proven.
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