Overview
In a side chapel of St Peter’s Roman Catholic church on West Street sits the preserved head of Oliver Plunkett – the archbishop hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1681, canonised in 1975, and the last Catholic martyr of Ireland and England. His head was brought to Drogheda in 1921 and has drawn pilgrims ever since. It is the most-visited thing in the town, and not for the squeamish. If you have only an hour, give it to St Peter’s and the streets around it.
Drogheda is the largest town in the Republic of Ireland – 44,135 people at the 2022 census – sitting on the Dublin–Belfast corridor where the Boyne makes its last bridged crossing before the sea. The river still splits the town between two Catholic dioceses, Armagh on the north bank and Meath on the south, a leftover from its odd beginnings.
A town of two halves
Drogheda began as two separate boroughs on opposite banks: Drogheda-in-Meath to the south and Drogheda-in-Oriel to the north, each with its own charter and its own suspicions of the other. They were united into a single town in 1412. By then it was one of the more important walled settlements in the English Pale, its position at the last bridge over the Boyne making it both a trading prize and a target. The medieval Irish Parliament sat here more than once during the 15th century.
The town came through two sieges in the Irish Confederate Wars and then the one everyone remembers: Cromwell’s storming of Drogheda in 1649, when much of the garrison and a large number of townspeople were killed. Later centuries turned it into an industrial port and, eventually, a commuter town for Dublin. The historic core slid into decline in the 20th century and is only now being clawed back, street by street.
Walking the historic core
The medieval street plan is still legible. St Laurence’s Gate was one of ten gates into the walled town, and the 13th-century barbican that survives is among the finest medieval town gates left in Europe – two drum towers and an arch, standing in the middle of a working street. A few minutes away, Magdalene Tower is the 14th-century belfry of a Dominican friary founded in 1224; in 1367 a group of Ulster chiefs submitted to the King of England on this spot.
Millmount rises across the river on a steep green mound that is itself a Norman motte, thrown up before 1186 by Hugh de Lacy. Free State artillery shelled the fort here during the Civil War in 1922; it was restored and reopened to the public in 2000. The museum inside is one of the better town museums in the country – a set of Guild and Trade banners, a reconstructed 18th-century folk kitchen, an Irish History room – and the adjoining Martello tower adds a later layer of coast defence. Climb up for the view over the Boyne estuary; the grounds are free, the museum and tower a modest fee.
Faith and pilgrimage
St Peter’s Church (Roman Catholic) is a Gothic revival building of local limestone, finished in 1884 around parts of an earlier church of 1791. It is worth a look in its own right – a marble High Altar, carved detail throughout, and more than 40 stained-glass windows – before you reach the shrine and the head itself, displayed in a glass-and-brass case. Mass is celebrated on the last Saturday of each month, and the church stays open for quiet visits the rest of the time. Across West Street, the Church of Ireland St Peter’s continues a separate worship tradition, the present building dating from 1753.
Culture and the arts
The Highlanes Gallery, in a former Franciscan church, opened in 2006 and holds the town’s municipal art collection – early 20th-century Irish work, some 18th-century pieces – alongside changing exhibitions. Among its holdings are a ceremonial sword and silver mace tied to the town’s civic past. Entry is free.
The festival calendar is busier than the town’s size suggests: the Drogheda Arts Festival over the May bank holiday weekend fills the old streets with music and theatre, the Boyne Midsummer Festival runs in late June (21–23 June), the Lú Festival of Light lights up the town at Halloween, and a Christmas market arrives in December. For a wet afternoon with children, Funtasia has indoor water slides, bowling and mini-golf.
The Boyne Valley gateway
Drogheda is the eastern gateway to one of the densest archaeological landscapes in Ireland. The Boyne Greenway, a riverside walking and cycling path, links the town centre to the wider valley, and from here you can quickly reach the UNESCO World Heritage complex of Brú na Bóinne – the 5,000-year-old passage tombs of Newgrange and Knowth. The Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre at Oldbridge House sets out the 1690 conflict, with walled gardens and trails on the grounds.
Closer still, Beaulieu House and Gardens – an unfortified house of around 1660, rare for its date – sits ten minutes out and opens to groups by appointment. Further on, the early Christian site at Monasterboice has some of the finest high crosses in the country and an almost intact round tower, and Mellifont Abbey, Ireland’s first Cistercian monastery (founded 1142), lies in quiet parkland a short drive south. With a car, the Cooley Peninsula adds coastal scenery, the Cooley Distillery and the medieval ruins of Castle Roche and Carlingford Castle.
Practical information
Getting there
- By train: Drogheda station has frequent Intercity trains to Dublin Connolly and Belfast Grand Central. It’s about a 15-minute walk from the town centre.
- By car: The M1 motorway passes just west of the town; the exit after the Boyne bridge serves southbound drivers.
- By bus: Bus Éireann Expressway route 100X runs direct from Dublin Airport to Drogheda in about 80 minutes (Monday to Saturday). Local routes link the town with Bettystown and the coast.
Parking
On-street parking is metered by day and free after 6pm. The Town Centre car park on Dyer Street stays open late for events, the Bus Station car park on Donore Road runs 24 hours, and the Port car park (short stay around €1.30/hour, 8am–8pm, free disabled bays for permit holders) is a fallback near the quays. A few car parks give the first hour free.
Most of the set-piece monuments are within easy walking distance of each other, so park once and explore on foot. Come on a weekday morning and you can have St Peter’s, and the head of Oliver Plunkett, almost to yourself.