Church

The National Monuments Service's description

The following description is derived from both the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986) and the 'Archaeological Survey of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1991). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.
Date of upload/revision: 17 July 2007

The parish church of Drogheda in Louth was established before 1186 and granted to the Augustinian canons of Llanthony Prima by Hugh de Lacy (Brooks 1953, 79). It apparently stood on or close to the present St Peter's (Church of Ireland) and as well as being a parish church was a college. All that survives of the medieval structure are a few pieces of cut stone, but according to Leask (1966, 117) it was a large church. According to Isaac Butler's Journal of 1744 (CLAJ 1922, 94) it had cross-aisles and three chancels, a large W aisle divided into three by two ranges of pillars, and ten great arches with a central steeple. It seems from this description to have had transepts, two side chapels and a tower at the crossing. There are nine pieces of cut stone set in concrete in the N side of the present church. Eight appear to be from the late medieval period and are decorated with a rosette type of ornament. There are three other fragments in the porch, including part of a cusped double-light window. In the church there is a decorated sandstone corbel in the W wall of the N side of the nave. Its decoration consists of foliage carved in low relief and it is almost certainly no later than the thirteenth century. Davies (CLAJ 1945, 23) mentions a drip moulding decorated with animals and vine leaves and illustrates the pieces (fig. 1) but they are now missing. (CLAJ 1945, 22-3; Bradley 1984b, 98-100)