Dundalk Town Crest.svg

Dundalk ( ; ga, Dún Dealgan ), meaning "the fort of Dealgan", is the county town (the administrative centre) of County Louth, Ireland. The town is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to the border with Northern Ireland. It is the eighth largest urban area in Ireland, with a population of 39,004 as of the 2016 census.

Having been inhabited since the Neolithic period, Dundalk was established as a Norman stronghold in the 12th century following the Norman invasion of Ireland, and became the northernmost outpost of The Pale in the Late Middle Ages. The town came to be nicknamed the "Gap of the North" where the northernmost point of the province of Leinster meets the province of Ulster. The modern street layout dates from the early 18th century and owes its form to James Hamilton (later 1st Earl of Clanbrassil). The legends of the mythical warrior hero Cú Chulainn are set in the district and the motto on the town's coat of arms is ''Mé do rug Cú Chulainn cróga''(Irish) "I gave birth to brave Cú Chulainn".

The town developed brewing, distilling, tobacco, textile, and engineering industries during the nineteenth century. It became prosperous and its population grew as it became an important manufacturing and trading centre—both as a hub on the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) network and with its maritime link to Liverpool from the Port of Dundalk. It later suffered from high unemployment and urban decay after these industries closed or scaled back operations both in the aftermath of the Partition of Ireland in 1921 and following the accession of Ireland to the European Economic Community in 1973. New industries have been established in the early part of the 21st century, including pharmaceutical, technology, financial services, and specialist foods.

There is one third-level education institute—Dundalk Institute of Technology. The largest theatre in the town, ''An Táin'' Arts Centre (named after the legend of the same name), is housed in the Town Hall, and the restored buildings of the nearby former Dundalk Distillery house both the County Museum Dundalk and the Louth County Library. Sporting clubs include Dundalk Football Club (who play at Oriel Park), Dundalk Rugby Club, Dundalk Golf Club, and several clubs competing in Gaelic games. Dundalk Stadium is a horse and greyhound racing venue and is Ireland's only all-weather horse racing track.

History

Early history and legend

Archaeological studies at Rockmarshall indicate that the Dundalk area was first inhabited circa 3700 BC following the end of the last Ice Age, during the Neolithic period. Visible evidence of this early presence can be seen in the form of the Proleek Dolmen, a portal tomb in the Ballymascanlon area, north of Dundalk, which dates to around 3000 BC. A wedge-shaped gallery grave (known as the "Giant's Grave") is nearby. Other pre-Christian archaeological sites in the Dundalk Municipal District are Rockmarshall Court Tomb, a court cairn, and Aghnaskeagh Cairns, a chambered cairn and portal tomb.

The legends of Cú Chulainn, including the ''Táin Bó Cúailnge'' (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), an epic of early Irish literature, are set in the first century AD, before the arrival of Christianity to Ireland. ''Clochafarmore'', the menhir that Cú Chulainn reputedly tied himself to before he died, is located to the west of the town, near Knockbridge.

According to the ''Annals of the Four Masters'', a battle was fought at Faughart (a townland 6 km north of the centre of Dundalk, near the Moyry Pass) between Cormac mac Airt, High King of Ireland and Storno (or Starno), King of Lochlin, in 248. The story is folklore and both characters are ahistorical.

Evidence of settlements from early Christian Ireland are to be found in the high concentration of souterrains in north Louth. The high concentration of souterrains indicates that the area was regularly subject to raids, and the discovery of a type of pottery known as 'souterrain ware', which has only been found in north Louth, County Down and County Antrim, indicates that these areas shared cultural ties separate from the rest of early historic Ireland. The concentration of souterrains drops significantly on crossing the River Fane to the south, indicating that the district was a border area between separate kingdoms.

Saint Brigid is reputed to have been born in 451 AD in Faughart. A shrine to her is located at Faughart. St Brigid's Church in Kilcurry holds what worshippers believe is a relic of the saint—a fragment of her skull, which was brought to the church in 1905 by Sister Mary Agnes of the Dundalk Convent of Mercy.

Middle Ages

Most of what is recorded about the Dundalk area between the fifth century and the foundation of the town as a Norman stronghold in the 12th century comes from the ''Annals of the Four Masters'' and the ''Annals of Tigernach'', which were both written hundreds of years after the events they record. According to the annals, the plains of North Louth incorporating what is now Dundalk were known as ''Magh Muirthemne'' (the Plain of the Dark Sea). The area, bordered to the northeast by ''Cuailgne'' (the Cooley peninsula) and to the south by the '' Ciannachta'', was ruled by a Cruthin kingdom known as ''Conaille Muirtheimne'' (who were aligned to the ''Ulaid'') in the early Christian period. According to the annals, a battle was fought at Faughart in 732 by Áed Allán, High King of Ireland against the ''Ulaid'', for which there is no contemporary evidence.

The '' Annals of Ulster'' record that in 851, Danish Vikings (the Dubhgall) attempted to attack the Norwegian Viking (Fingall) settlement at Annagassan at the southern end of Dundalk Bay and were heavily defeated. The following year, Norwegian Vikings based in Scotland were sent to attack the Danes in Carlingford Lough but their expedition was unsuccessful. D'Alton's ''History of Dundalk'' recounts an apocryphal tale of the "Battle of Dundalk": Sitric, son of Turgesius, ruler of the Danes in Ireland, had offered Callaghan, the King of Munster, his sister in marriage. But it was a trick to take the king prisoner and he was captured and held hostage in Armagh. An army was raised in Munster and marched on Armagh to free the king, but he had been removed to Sitric's ship in Dundalk Bay. However, a fleet from Munster attacked the Danes in the bay from the south. During the sea battle, the Munster admiral, Failbhe Fion, boarded Sitric's ship and freed the king, but was killed by Sitric who put Failbhe Fion's head on a pole. Failbhe Fion's second in command, Fingal, enraged, seized Sitric by the neck and jumped into the sea where they both drowned. Two more Irish captains, seeing this, each grabbed one of Sitric's two brothers and did the same, and the Danes subsequently surrendered.

Prior to the arrival of the Normans, the district can be said to have entirely comprised rural settlements, although there are historical references to a pre-Norman town called ''Traghbaile'' ( anglicised as Traghbally: Seatown), the name of which could originate from the legend of the death of Baile Mac Buain—hence ''Traghbaile'', meaning 'Baile's Strand'.

By the time of the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169, ''Magh Muirthemne'' had been absorbed into the kingdom of ''Airgíalla'' (Oriel) under the Ó Cearbhaills. In about 1185, the Norman nobleman Bertram de Verdun erected a manor house at Castletown Mount on the ancient site of ''Dún Dealgan'' ''(Dún'' being the Irish language term for a type of medieval fort and ''Dealga'' being the name of a mythical Fir Bolg Chieftain. De Verdon founded his settlement seemingly without resistance from ''Airgíalla'' (the Ó Cearbhaills are recorded as having submitted to Henry II), and in 1187 he founded an Augustinian friary under the patronage of St Leonard. He was awarded the lands around what is now Dundalk by Prince John on the death of Murchadh Ó Cearbhaill in 1189. On de Verdun's death in Jaffa in 1192, his lands at Dundalk passed to his son Thomas and then to his second son, Nicholas, when Thomas died. In 1236, Nicholas's daughter Roesia commissioned Castle Roche 10 km north-west of the present-day town, on a large rocky outcrop with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. It was completed by her son, John, in the 1260s.

The Ulster Irish sided with Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce after he landed at Larne on 26 May 1315. As his army made its way south through Ulster, they destroyed the de Verdun fortress at Castle Roche and attacked Dundalk on 29 June. The town was almost totally destroyed and its population, both Anglo-Irish and Gaelic, massacred. After taking possession of the town, Bruce proclaimed himself King of Ireland. Following three more years of battles across the north-eastern part of the island, Bruce was killed and his army defeated at the Battle of Faughart by a force led by John de Birmingham, who was created the 1st Earl of Louth as a reward.

Later generations of de Verduns continued to own lands at Dundalk into the 14th century. Following the death of Theobald de Verdun, 2nd Baron Verdun in 1316 without a male heir, the family's landholdings were split. One of Theobold de Verdun's daughters, Joan, married the second Baron Furnivall, Thomas de Furnivall, and his family subsequently acquired much of the de Verdun land at Dundalk. The de Furnivall family's coat of arms formed the basis of the seal of the 'New Town of Dundalk'—a 14th-century seal discovered in the early 20th century, which became the town's coat of arms in 1968. The 'new town' that was established in the 13th century is the present-day town centre; the 'old town of the Castle of Dundalk' being the original de Verdun settlement at Castletown Mount some 2 km to the west. The de Furnivalls then sold their holdings to the Bellew family, another Norman family long established in County Meath. The town was granted its first formal charter as a 'New Town' in the late 14th century under the reign of Richard II of England.

Effectively a frontier town as the northernmost outpost of The Pale, Dundalk continued to grow as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries progressed. The town was heavily fortified, as it was regularly attacked—with at least 14 separate assaults, sieges or demands for tribute by a resurgent native Irish population recorded between 1300 and 1600 (with more than that number being probable). The O'Neills and O'Donnells of Ulster ransacked the town at least twice and threatened it on at least three other occasions between 1423 and 1444.

English rule

In advance of crowning himself ' King of Ireland' in 1542, Henry VIII extended his policy of Dissolution of the Monasteries to Ireland, and in 1540 the Priory of St Leonard, founded by Bertram de Verdun, was surrendered. During the subsequent Tudor conquest of Ireland, Dundalk remained the northern outpost of English rule. When the conquest was over, it was recorded that the lands and property of Dundalk were in the hands of Sir John Bellew and Sir John Draycot. The town was later used as a base of operations for the English, led by Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, for their push into Ulster through the 'Gap of the North' (the Moyry Pass) in 1600, during the Nine Years' War.

Following the Flight of the Earls, the subsequent Plantation of Ulster (and the associated suppression of Catholicism) resulted in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. After only token resistance, Dundalk was occupied by an Ulster Irish Catholic army on 31 October. They subsequently tried and failed to take Drogheda and retreated to Dundalk. The Royal Irish Army, who were led by the Duke of Ormond (and known as Ormondists), in turn, laid siege to Dundalk and overran and plundered the town in March 1642, killing many inhabitants. The Royalists continued to occupy the town, during which time they maintained a truce with the Irish Catholic Confederation who had succeeded the rebels of 1641, as the English Civil War developed. In 1647, the town was occupied by the Northern Parliamentary Army of George Monck, who held it for two years before surrendering it back to the Ormondists. It was quickly retaken by the forces of Oliver Cromwell, who had landed in Ireland in August 1649 and sacked Drogheda. After the massacre in Drogheda, Cromwell wrote to the Ormondist commander in Dundalk warning him that his garrison would suffer the same fate if it did not surrender. The Duke of Ormond ordered the commander to have his men burn the town before his retreat but they did not do so, such was their haste to leave. For the remainder of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the town was again used as a base for operations against the Irish in Ulster.

The Corporation of Dundalk was granted a new charter by Charles II on 4 March 1673, after the Restoration of the monarchy. The forfeiture of property and settlements carried out during the Restoration saw much of the land of Dundalk granted to Marcus Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon, who had fought for both sides in the war. Even though the Bellews were seen as Papists, Sir John Bellew appears to have held on to much of his family's land. English politics were soon impacting Ireland again, and in 1689 the Williamite commander, Schomberg landed in Belfast and marched unopposed to Dundalk, but, as the bulk of his forces were raw and undisciplined as well as inferior in numbers to the Jacobite Irish Army, he decided against risking a battle. He entrenched himself at Dundalk and declined to be drawn beyond the circle of his defences. With poor logistics and struck by disease, over 5,000 of his troops died and an opportunity to end the war by taking Dundalk from the Jacobites was missed.

After the end of the Williamite War, the third Viscount Dungannon, Mark Trevor, sold the Dundalk estate to James Hamilton of Tollymore, County Down. Hamilton's son, also James, was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and then the first Earl of Clanbrassil in 1756. The modern town of Dundalk largely owes its form to Hamilton. The military activity of the 17th century had left much of the town's walls in ruins. With the collapse of the Gaelic aristocracy and the total takeover of the country by the English, Dundalk was no longer a frontier town and no longer had a need for its 15th-century fortifications. Hamilton commissioned the construction of streets leading to the town centre; his ideas stemming from his visits to Continental Europe. In addition to the demolition of the old walls and castles, he had new roads laid out eastwards of the principal streets.

When the first Earl died in 1758, the estates passed to his son, again James, the second Earl of Clanbrassil, who died without an heir in 1798. The second Earl's sister, Lady Anne Hamilton, had married Robert Jocelyn in 1752. The Jocelyns were originally landowners in County Tipperary and Robert Jocelyn was created first Earl of Roden in 1771. On the death of the second Earl of Clanbrassil, the Earls of Roden succeeded to the Dundalk estate. Several portions of the Roden Dundalk estate were sold off under the auspices of the various land acts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, culminating in the Irish Free State government lands purchase acts of the 1920s. The residue of the estate, mainly freeholds and ground rents, was sold in 2006, thus finally severing the links between the Earls of Roden and the town of Dundalk.

During the 18th century, Ireland was controlled by the minority Anglican Protestant Ascendancy via the Penal Laws, which discriminated against both the majority Irish Catholic population and Dissenters. Mirroring other boroughs around the country, Dundalk Corporation was a 'closed shop', consisting of an electorate of 'freemen', most of whom were absentee landlords of the Ascendancy. The Earl of Clanbrassil controlled the procedures for both the nomination of new freemen and the nomination of parliamentary candidates, therefore disenfranchising the local populace. In the late 18th century, the United Irishmen movement, inspired by the American and French revolutions, led to the Rebellion of 1798. In north Louth, the authorities had successfully suppressed the activities of the United Irishmen prior to the rebellion with the help of informants, and several local leaders had been rounded up and imprisoned in Dundalk Gaol. An attack on the military barracks and gaol was planned for 21 June 1798, in order to free prisoners. The attack failed because of a thunderstorm, which dispersed the gathered United Irish volunteers, and two of the jailed leaders - Anthony Marmion and John Hoey - were subsequently tried for treason and hanged.

After the Acts of Union

Following the Act of Union, which came into force on 1 January 1801, The 19th century saw industrial expansion in the town (see Economy) and the construction of several buildings that are landmarks in the town. The first railway links arrived when the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway opened a line from Quay Street to Castleblayney in 1849, and by 1860 the company operated a route northwest to Derry. Also in 1849, the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway opened Dundalk railway station. Following a series of mergers, both lines were incorporated into the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) in 1876.

The established and merchant classes prospered alongside a general population that suffered from poverty. A typhus epidemic struck in the 1810s, potato-crop failures in the 1820s caused famine, and a cholera epidemic struck in the 1830s. During the Great Famine of the 1840s, the town did not suffer to the same extent as the west and south of Ireland. Cereal-based agriculture, new industries, construction projects, and the arrival of the railway all contributed to sparing the town of its worst effects. Nevertheless, so many people died in the Dundalk Union Workhouse that the graveyard was quickly filled. A second graveyard was opened on the Ardee Road—the Dundalk Famine Graveyard—which is known to contain approximately 4,000 bodies. It was closed in 1905 and was left derelict until the 21st Century when local volunteers worked to restore it.

In 1858, a ship, the ''Mary Stoddart'', was wrecked in Dundalk Bay during a storm. In attempting to rescue the crew, Captain James Joseph Kelly and three volunteer crew drowned when the storm overturned their boat. Five of the ''Mary Stoddart'' crew were also lost, while 11 were eventually rescued. The Kelly Monument in Roden Place was erected 20 years later as a memorial.

The latter part of the 19th Century was dominated by the Irish Home Rule movement and Dundalk became a focal point of the politics of the time. The Irish National Land League held a demonstration in Dundalk on New Year's Day, 1881, stated by the local press to be the largest gathering ever seen in the town. The town by this point had become increasingly and overtly nationalistic—for example, the ''Dundalk Democrat & People's Journal'' newspaper, founded in 1849, had the motto "Ireland for the Irish" on its masthead, and the 'Maid of Erin' monument was erected in the Market Square outside the courthouse to commemorate the centenary of the 1798 rebellion.

As the Home Rule movement developed, the sitting Home Rule League MP, Philip Callan, fell afoul of party leader Charles Stewart Parnell, who travelled to Dundalk to oversee efforts to have Callan unseated. Parnell's candidate, Joseph Nolan, defeated Callan in the election of 1885, after a campaign of voter suppression and intimidation on both sides. Following the split in the Irish Parliamentary Party, the leading anti-Parnellite, Tim Healy, won the North Louth seat in 1892, defeating Nolan (who had stayed loyal to Parnell). The campaign, predicted by Healy to be "the nastiest fight in Ireland", saw running battles and mass brawls in the streets between Parnellites, 'Healyites', and 'Callanites'—supporters of Philip Callan, who was trying to regain his seat.

The local Sinn Féin cumann was founded in 1907 by Patrick Hughes. It struggled to grow beyond a handful of members owing to the existing political factions. In 1910, on the accession of George V to the English throne, the local High Sheriff, accompanied by police and soldiers, led a proclamation to the new king at the Market Square. The ceremony was interrupted by the local Sinn Féin members, who raised a tricolour beside the Maid of Erin monument and chanted "God Save Ireland" during a rendition of "God Save the King"—giving the party visibility in the town for the first time.

Approximately 2,500 men from Louth volunteered for Allied regiments in World War I and it is estimated that 307 men from the Dundalk district died during the war. In the months before the outbreak of the war, the G.N.R. converted nine of its carriages into a mobile 'ambulance train', which could hold 100 wounded soldiers. ''Ambulance Train 13'' was kept in service for the duration of the war before being decommissioned in 1919. The war came to Dundalk right at its end, when the ''S.S. Dundalk'' was sunk by a German U-Boat on 14 October 1918 on a voyage from Liverpool back to Dundalk. 20 crew-members were killed, while 12 were rescued.

Meanwhile, the Easter Rising had changed the political landscape. 80 members of the Irish Volunteers had left Dundalk to take part in the Rising, with orders to destroy the bridge at Slane and take up position in Blanchardstown, outside Dublin. The countermanding order of Eoin MacNeill, followed by the realisation that the Rising had commenced anyway, caused confusion. Members of the unit ended up in Castlebellingham, trying to evade the Dundalk RIC. There, they held several RIC men and a British Army officer at gunpoint until one of the Volunteers, believing the army officer was reaching for a hidden weapon, fired, killing RIC constable Charles McGee. The unit subsequently made their way to North County Dublin until the Rising had ended. They went on the run and most were captured. Four were sentenced to death for the murder of Constable McGee but were released in the general amnesty of 1917.

Independence

In the 1918 Irish general election, Louth elected its first Sinn Féin MP when John J. O'Kelly defeated the sitting MP, Richard Hazleton of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in the closest contest of the election—O'Kelly winning by 255 votes. In the run-up to the election, the local newspapers had supported the Irish Party over Sinn Féin and complained afterwards that the area of Drogheda in County Meath that was included in the Louth constituency had tipped the contest in Sinn Féin's favour. Again, the campaign saw reports of widespread violence and intimidation tactics.

There was no strategic military action in north Louth during the Irish War of Independence. Activity consisted of attacks on RIC stations and patrols to seize arms, and acts of sabotage. Arson attacks were a feature of the period in particular. Crown forces committed reprisal attacks in response, hardening support for Sinn Féin. In the aftermath of a shooting of an RIC auxiliary on 17 June 1921, brothers John and Patrick Watters were taken from their home at the Windmill Bar and shot dead. The British authorities subsequently suppressed the ''Dundalk Examiner'' newspaper for reporting on the incident, and smashed its printing presses. Volunteers from the area led by Frank Aiken were more active in Ulster, and were responsible for the derailing of a military train at Adavoyle railway station, 14 km north of Dundalk, which killed three soldiers, the train's guard, and dozens of horses.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty turned Dundalk, once again, into a frontier town. Aiken's Fourth Northern Division continued a guerrilla campaign against the new Northern Ireland government and its Ulster Special Constabulary, with sectarian attacks and reprisals carried out by both sides. In the new Irish Free State, the split over the treaty led to the Irish Civil War. Before the outbreak of hostilities, Éamon de Valera toured Ireland making a series of anti-treaty speeches. In the Market Square on 2 April 1922, before a large crowd, he said that those who had negotiated the treaty "had run across to Lloyd George to be spanked like little boys." Aiken attempted to keep his division neutral during the split over the treaty but events in Dublin overtook his border war.

On 16 July 1922, Aiken and all of the anti-treaty elements among his men were arrested and imprisoned at Dundalk military barracks and Dundalk Gaol in a surprise move by the pro-treaty Fifth Northern Division, now part of the National Army. Eleven days later, anti-treaty 'Irregulars' blew a hole in the outer wall of the gaol, freeing Aiken and his men. At 4am on 14 August, Aiken led an attack on the barracks that resulted in its capture with five National Army and two Irregular soldiers killed. Aiken's men killed another dozen National Army soldiers in guerrilla attacks before the town was retaken without resistance on 26 August. Before withdrawing, Aiken called for a truce at a meeting in the centre of Dundalk. From that point, north Louth ceased to be an area of strategic importance in the war. Guerrilla attacks continued—mainly acts of sabotage, particularly against the railway. In January 1923, six anti-treaty prisoners were executed by firing squad in Dundalk for bearing arms against the state.

Border town

The partition of Ireland turned Dundalk into a border town and the Dublin–Belfast main line into an international railway. On 1 April 1923, the Free State government began installing border posts for the purpose of collecting customs duties. Almost immediately, the town started to suffer economic problems. A global post-war slump had been exacerbated by the introduction of the border and tariffs. Businesses in the town saw their trade with the new cross-border areas greatly reduced, and Carroll's tobacco company set about opening a new factory in Liverpool. The Dundalk Distillery was closed within weeks, as its products became nonviable. It reopened temporarily but was closed again in 1926 because its owners, Scottish Distillers, no longer needed the production capacity. The same year, the G.N.R. works reduced its workforce by several hundred; and the Dundalk and Newry Steam Packet Company went into voluntary liquidation and was taken over by B&I. It had been beset by strikes because of wage cuts imposed in both Dundalk and Liverpool by management. With a population of 14,000 at the time, unemployment was reported to be nearly 2,000 and it was reported that: "Up to a few years ago, Dundalk was one of the most prosperous and go-ahead towns in Ireland... utit is a matter of common local knowledge that distress to an acute degree is prevalent." The Anglo-Irish trade war, in the midst of a global depression, made things more difficult still. The industrial situation stabilised, however, as the need for self-sufficiency and the protectionist policies adopted allowed local industries to increase employment and prosper.

After the election of Fianna Fáil in 1932, two years of violence and intimidation followed as former Civil War foes in the IRA and National Army clashed at political rallies. The latter formed the Army Comrades Association, and became known as the Blueshirts. A member of the Blueshirts carrying money from a collection in Dundalk was robbed at gunpoint by the IRA. Two local men were subsequently convicted of the robbery. One of the witnesses for the prosecution was a Joseph McGrory from Chapel Sreet. Unidentified men, presumed by Gardaí to be members of the IRA, later threw a bomb into his house, destroying it and seriously injuring his mother who was inside, and two children playing outside. The woman later died from her injuries. Five suspects charged with her murder were later acquitted due to lack of evidence. One of these, IRA Volunteer Richard Goss, was interned at the start of World War II and was released following a successful habeas corpus legal challenge. He was later executed in 1941 for shooting at Gardaí and Defence Forces while trying to evade arrest.

There were three aeroplane crashes in what is now the municipal district during the war. A British Hudson bomber crashed with three fatalities in 1941, and a P-51 Mustang fighter of the US Army Air Forces crashed in September 1944, killing its pilot. The worst of the wartime air crashes occurred on 16 March 1942. 15 allied airmen died when their Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber crashed into Slieve na Glogh, which rises above the townland of Jenkinstown. On 24 July 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped bombs near the town. There were no casualties and only minor damage was caused.

The town continued to grow in size—in terms of area, population and employment—after " the Emergency" (as World War II was called in Ireland), despite economic shocks such as the dissolution of the G.N.R. in 1958 and the closure of the Rawson shoe factory after a fire in 1967. The accession of Ireland to the European Economic Community in 1973 caused difficulties, however. Subsequent factory closures and job losses in businesses that struggled due to competition, collapsing consumer confidence, and unfavourable exchange rates with cross-border competitors, resulted in an unemployment rate of 26% by 1986.

In addition, the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1968 and the town's position close to the border saw the town's population swell, as nationalists/Catholics fleeing the violence in Northern Ireland settled in the area. As a result of the ongoing sectarianism in the north, there was sympathy for the cause of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin, and the town was home to numerous IRA operatives. It was in this period that Dundalk earned the nickname 'El Paso', after the Texan border town of the same name on the border with Mexico. On 1 September 1973, the 27 Infantry Battalion of the Irish Army was established, with its headquarters in Dundalk barracks, as a result of the ongoing violence in the border region of North Louth / South Armagh. The barracks was renamed Aiken Barracks in 1986 in honour of Frank Aiken.

'The Battle of Courtbane' took place on Sunday 29 August 1971, when a British army patrol consisting of two armoured Ferret Scout cars crossed the Irish border into Co. Louth near the village of Courtbane close to Dundalk. Angry locals blocked their retreat and set one of the vehicles on fire. As this was happening, an IRA unit arrived on the scene and a British soldier was killed and another wounded after an exchange of gunfire. The Ulster Volunteer Force carried out the 'Christmas Bombing' on 19 December 1975, when a car bomb killed two people and injured 15. The town was also the scene of several killings connected to the INLA and its propensity to engage in internal feuds and criminal activity.

After the start of the Northern Ireland peace process, and the subsequent Good Friday Agreement, then U.S. president, Bill Clinton chose Dundalk to make an open-air address in December 2000 in support of the peace process. In his speech in the Market Square, witnessed by an estimated 60,000 people, Clinton spoke of "a new day in Dundalk and a new day in Ireland".

21st century

The town was slow to benefit from a 'peace dividend', and in the first decade of the new millennium the remaining shoe factory, the two Diageo-owned breweries, and the Carroll's tobacco factory were among several factories to close—finally severing the links to the town's industrial past. By 2012, the town was being painted as one of Ireland's "most deprived areas" after the global downturn following the Financial crisis of 2007–2008.

Indigenous industry started to recover, with the Great Northern Brewery being reopened as 'the Great Northern Distillery' in 2015 by John Teeling, who had established and later sold the Cooley Distillery; and locally-driven initiatives led to a flurry of foreign direct investment announcements in the latter half of the 2010s, particularly in the technology and pharmaceutical sectors.

The town's association football club, Dundalk F.C., first formed in 1903 by the workers of the Great Northern Railway, received European-wide recognition when it became the first Irish side to win points in the group stage of European competition in the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League. The club again qualified for the group stage in the 2020–21 season.

Geography

Dundalk lies on the 54th parallel north circle of latitude (). It is situated where the Castletown River flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland, with the town centre on the south side of the river. It is in County Louth, which shares borders with County Armagh to the north (in Northern Ireland), County Monaghan to the west, and County Meath to the south. It is near the border with Northern Ireland (which is from the town centre by road and at the nearest points by air), and is equidistant between Dublin and Belfast ( from both). The town came to be nicknamed the 'Gap of the North' where the northernmost point of the province of Leinster meets the province of Ulster, although the actual 'gap' is the Moyry Pass 8 km to the north at the border with Northern Ireland. Following the abolition of 'legal towns' under the Local Government Reform Act 2014, Dundalk is part of the wider Dundalk Municipal District for the purposes of local government, which is approximately equivalent to the pre-1898 baronies of Dundalk Lower and Dundalk Upper, i.e. roughly the northern one-third of the county by area including the Cooley peninsula. The former legal town and its environs (approximately the area north of the River Fane (including Blackrock), south of Exit 18 on the M1, bordered by the M1 to the west and the Irish Sea to the east; and incorporating Knockbridge to the west of the M1) is now the 'census town'.

Landscape

The main part of the census town lies at sea level. Dún Dealgan Motte at Castletown is the highest point in the urban area at an elevation of . The municipal district includes the Cooley Mountains, with Slieve Foy

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