History of Drogheda by John Dalton 1844
The History of Drogheda by John Dalton 1844
This article is an extract from History of Drogheda Volume 1 by John D'Alton published in 1844.
The Harbour of Drogheda is formed by the outfall of the river Boyne, assisted by the ebb from a considerable tide basin below the town. It was formerly very difficult to access, being very narrow, and having also a bar lying over it, over which vessels could not pass except at high water. So early as 1703, a committee of Parliament was appointed to prepare a bill for making this river navigable, and it was ordered, that all the representatives of the adjacent counties and boroughs should be of that committee. Little however, being done in furtherance of their intention, the Corporation of Drogheda, in 1729, petitioned the Irish Parliament with the object of having the channel, harbour, and river cleansed, and a Ballast Office erected; upon which the Act 3 Geo. II c. 21 was passed, constituting the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Burgesses, and Commons of Drogheda, keepers and conservators of its river and port, with powers to make by-laws for the cleansing of the harbour, and security of the shipping, to erect a ballast office, raise ballast impose duties, & c.
All monies levied under the powers of this Act (salaries and necessary expenses being deducted), were to be applied to the improvement of the harbour; and the overplus of any, to support a work house for promoting the linen manufacture. To this Act succeeded the provisions of the 33 Geo. II. c. 1, s. 14, and the 1 Geo. III. c. 1, s. 31.
In 1759, £2000 was granted by Parliament, and a like sum in 1761, to the corporation. For promoting inland navigation, to be by them applied for deepening this harbour, from the pile work below the bridge to the bar of the river; by which aid a cut was formed through gravel and sand on the south side of the river, and the existing difficulty to a vessel, coming up to the town with a south or north wind was thereby removed.
In 1781 £1000 was granted for a similar purpose and a like sum in 1783. Further enhancements were passed with the object of facilitating the navigation of this river by the 21 and 22 Geo. III. c. 1, s. 26, and the 23 and 24 Geo III. c. 1, s. 31. in 1785, an act was passed (25 Geo. III. c. 64) to amend the former Act of 3 Geo. II. c. 21, for cleansing this port, and erecting a ballast office; no ballast office has, however been since erected. Other provisions are embodied in the Acts 27 Geo. III. c. 30, s. 25, 229 Geo. III. c. 33, s. 2, and 30 Geo III. c. 40.
In 1790, in consequence of repeated petitions from the Corporation, merchants, and inhabitants of Drogheda a Parliamentary grant of £600 per annum, for the twelve succeeding years was given, and an act passed (30 Geo. III. c. 39.), whereby the Mayor and Recorder of Drogheda, and the representatives in parliament, for Meath, Louth, and Drogheda, and six Aldermen, and seven members of the Common Council, were constituted Commissioners for improving and cleansing the river and harbour, and certain duties on the tonnage of vessels were thereby imposed, to be applied for such purposes.
In 1797, the latter Act was amended by the 37 Geo. III. c. 56, and powers given for purchasing and improving the waste ground, before alluded to as since built upon, for quays and storehouses. The imperial legislature has further provided for the objects, powers and available funds of those Commissioners, by the following local Acts, 43 Geo. III. c. lx. 48 Geo III. c. cvi. 50 Geo. III. c. x. and 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. XXXV. while the Act, 5 & 6 Vict. c. ci. transferred all property to a new set of Commissioners thereby appointed, and prescribed their qualifications, powers, and duties; and the Commissioner of Public Works have advanced £10,000 on mortgage of the tolls and securities by bonds, and have recommended a further loan of £5000, for continuing and completing the improvements of the harbour. By these several means the quay has been widened to an extent of about ten feet on the north side of the river, from the bridge to a point opposite the custom-house; new quay walls have been constructed, and the river deepened four feet, so that vessels of 400 tons, by discharging part of their cargo below, can come up to the bridge; the port is, however, more adapted to vessels of about 200 tons, drawing from ten to twelve feet of water, while above the bridge the river is navigable for lighters of 70 tons.
Three lighthouses have been recently erected on sand hills at the entrance of the harbour. The exertions of the Corporation for yet further improvements are indefatigable. Some notion may be formed of the scouring power of this river, when it is considered that the Boyne takes its rise about 50 miles from Drogheda, and draining a tract of 700 square statute miles, delivers about 3000 cube feet of water per second, in ordinary times, at a bridge. The river meets the tide about a mile and a half above Drogheda, and the tidal basin below extends over a space of 460 statute acres; it is 7000 yards in length from the bridge to the narrow between the sand hills called the Crooks widening some 160 feet at the bridge, to half a mile at Beltra, and then suddenly contracting to breadth of 160 yards high, and 90 yards at low water. This space contains at high water 3,600,000 cube yards, or 97 1/4 millions of feet, the tide in which basin, at ordinary times, flows 4 hours 20`, and ebbs 8 hours 5`; but these proportions of course vary in freshness and draughts.
Being as Drogheda is, the embouchure of all that the fertility of Meath and Louth can produce, and, situated nearly opposite Liverpool, it maintains the most extensive commerce, not only with England and Scotland, to which 5 steam packets of about 350 tons each, are constantly plying from thence, but also with Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
About sixty years since, the shipping interest from this town gave employment to but a solitary vessel, the Mary Anne, whose ladings, insurances, departures, and returns, were at the same time a source of reiterated excitement to the merchants, and are now traditionary themes of wonder and diversion among their descendants. Drogheda linens were then principle export and were entitled to a bounty under the revision of the linen board. The principal Exports are cattle, sheep, pigs, corn, flour, oatmeal, salt, eggs, butter, wool, cotton, etc.
The cattle and sheep exported are from Meath and Louth, while the great supply of pigs arrive by the Kells line. There is also a great carrying trade from this town westward, in timber, chiefly plank, iron, coal, salt, leather, glue, tobacco, soap, slates, Scotch cured fish & c. The chief imports are slates, coal, culm, rock salt, iron, bark, herrings, and dried fish, sugar, linen, yarn, tea, tobacco, wines, glass, with manufactured goods of all kinds: indeed all the merchandize sold or used in the town is imported, except for a portion of the sugar, tea, whiskey, wine, tobacco, apparel, hardware, and some minor articles obtained from Dublin; the trade however, with the Metropolis is under existing circumstances, decreasing and that with Liverpool extending; the Liverpool agents of the Drogheda Steam Company being required to act as brokers for all persons who get goods from England by the Company’s Vessels.
The value of the exports, as estimated in 1835, was £766,027, that of their imports, £259,854. According to the returns for the year ending in the January of that year (1835), there were shipped from this port 126,380 loads of meal, 42,500 bushels of wheat, 3000 barrels of peas, 37,000 sacks of flour, 2500 barrels of barley, 22,000 of oats, 13,000 crates of eggs, 600 firkins of butter, 4100 cows, 12,000 sheep, 39,000 pigs, and 500 barrels of ale. The number of vessels in the foreign trade, that entered inwards during that interval, was 14 British and three foreign, and 2 British vessels cleared outwards. In the trade with Great Britain, and across the channel, 462 cleared outwards; and in the trade with various ports in Ireland, 42 entered inwards, and 23 cleared outwards. The number of vessels, registered as belonging to this port, was stated some years since as forty, of an aggerate burden of 3763 tons; a later return to Parliament, in 1841, states the total tonnage of the vessels registered in Drogheda during that year, as 4850.
