1798 Census in Drogheda

1798 Pikeman Memorial statue, Wexford

1798 was a time of uncertainty and rebellion in Ireland. The United Irishmen were engaged in their guerrilla warfare against the Crown forces from May to September '98 in their attempt to achieve a democratic and equal Ireland. Their fight was based around the principles of the French and American Revolutions and was gaining support all over the country. The Census that took place in Drogheda in '98 shows that the authorities believed there was considerable support for the rebellion amongst the population of Drogheda. This goes contrary to popularly held opinion on the matter; indeed D'Alton, in his 'History of Drogheda' says that it "appears, however, creditable to the loyalty of the town that at the two Assizes of 1799, the number of felons arraigned was but seventeen, of whom only one was tried for sedition and discharged." Indeed, there are a number of reports from the time of members of the 'Defenders' gathering on the banks of the Boyne to parade and swear each other in as members. In Feb 1793 a proclamation offering a reward of £100 to any person who would persecute them (the Defenders) in, amongst others, the county of the town of Drogheda "where they assembled in large bodies with arms and other offensive weapons, administered illegal oaths, sent threatening letters, plundered houses of arms and other things and burned both houses and offices."
On the 22nd June 1798 a Michael Boylan was hanged at the Tholsel for being part of the United Irishmen, along with two other men from Dundalk a short time later.

The '98 Census also provides additional information to historians by providing not only
population lists but also an indication of how the poorer classes lived, those who seem to be invisible in compiled history. A remarkable fact shown was that there were more people living outside the town walls than inside  - 8,556 persons in 1,881 houses outside the walls and 6,669 persons in 926 houses inside. Most of the construction outside consisted of "ribbon building" of small thatched mud-walled cabins on all of the approach roads to the various gates - Chord Rd. to Laurence Gate, Hardman's Gardens and Scarlet St. to St. Sunday's Gate, North Rd and Mell to West Gate, Platten Rd, Coolagh St. and Priest Lane to Duleek Gate etc. These cabins were mostly inhabited by the native Irish who, displaced from small farms by agrarian troubles, moved gradually towards the town in search of employment.

If contemporary accounts are to be believed there should have been no lack of work for them. Arthur Young, writing of the town a decade earlier than this census says: "Situated on the Boyne...it exported considerable quantities of corn and provisions as well as a coarse kind of cloth which was made in the district. There was a bustling vigorous air along the quays, where ships were continually loading and unloading, and in the streets surrounding the markets." It was market day in the town on the occasion of Arthur Young's visit and he found "the quantity of corn etc. and the number of people assembled very great - few country markets in England were ever more thronged." The Linen Hall had already been built (1774) where a great linen market was held weekly to dispose of the very large amount of cloth woven in the district, and there were many other small industries such as tanning, brewing, distilling etc. in the town.

Laurence Gate area 1820

The inhabitants of the thatched dwellings outside the walls in 1798 were most likely Gaelic speakers, and the immediate forbears of those described by the German J. G. Kohl a few decades later. Kohl writes of Drogheda, which he visited in 1844: "Drogheda is a very Irish town - the last genuine Irish one the traveller meets on this coast as he travels northward. Nay, Drogheda is perhaps more Irish than many a town in the south or west of the island. The population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, but few Protestants are to be found there. The suburbs of Drogheda are genuinely Irish, miserable, filthy falling cabins, and many persons are likewise to be found in the neighbourhood who understand and speak the old Irish language and say they cannot speak English with comfort or fluency. Nay, according to what I was told by the inhabitants I must believe that the Irish language is far more general in and around Drogheda than at any other point on the eastern coast of Ireland." Thus the large population outside the town wall, as indicated by the 1798 Census, marked a significant stage in the re-conquest of the town by the native Irish. The cabins in which they lived survived in most areas until they were demolished and replaced by modern housing schemes from the 1930's.


Extracts from " A Drogheda Census List of 1798" by Moira Corcoran from the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal 1970 Vol. 17.