PORTSPORTS
Although saints’ lives and other monastic sources
have occasional references to ships and trade and cer-
tain of the larger monasteries such as Armagh and
Kildare may have functioned as proto-towns, it was
the Vikings who established the first towns and ports
in Ireland. Beginning in the ninth century with their
longphoirt, “fortified enclosures protecting their ships,”
in County Louth and at Dublin, they expanded to
become permanent settlements and centres of trade in
the tenth century. Carrickfergus, Carlingford,
Drogheda, Dublin, Wicklow, Arklow, and Wexford
were ideally placed along the east coast of the Irish
Sea to benefit from the traffic on the trade route from
Scandinavia and the northern isles to England and the
continent. The excavations of Viking Dublin show a
thriving city of merchants and craftsmen in wood, metal,
bone, and cloth who manufactured goods which they
traded locally and abroad. Evidence of finds also sug-
gests that food supplies in particular came from the
local Irish, but perhaps the smaller Viking settlements
to the north and south also shipped food and fuel
supplies to Dublin.
When the Anglo-Normans came in the twelfth
century they immediately recognized the importance
of the Viking settlements, and these were quickly
taken over, with Dublin and the larger ports coming
under the king’s direct control. In other places local
magnates founded a port as a gateway to trade with
their lands. John de Courcy tried to develop Down
Patrick, a long-established religious and dynastic
center, as a port as well as the main town of his
lands. He chose Carrickfergus as a strategic site and
constructed a strong keep there possibly as early as
- A settlement grew up beside the castle, which
had a parish church by 1205 and was described as a
“vill” in 1226. After the earldom of Ulster reverted
to the king in 1333 the port in the shadow of the
castle functioned as a government outpost useful for
trade with the Gaelic hinterland in a region beyond
the jurisdiction of the crown throughout the later
Middle Ages. However, archaeological finds of
imported pottery indicate that the citizens main-
tained foreign contacts as well.
Bertram de Verdon may be regarded as the founder
of Dundalk after he was granted most of north
County Louth by the future King John. The early
settlement was close to the motte and bailey at Cas-
tletown, but the town was to develop a little over a
mile downstream close to the estuary and to take
advantage of the Irish Sea trade in the early thirteenth
century. Indications are that the port was operational
before the official customs were established in the
late 1270s, and Dundalk was reckoned as one of
the“ports of Ulster.” Such references to the trade of
the port as survive indicate the usual commodities:
wine, salt, iron, and cloth imported and corn, fish,
and hides exported, but compared with Drogheda
and Dublin, Dundalk remained a minor port in the
Middle Ages.
Hugh de Lacy fortified the site of Drogheda on
the river Boyne five miles from the open sea. The
earliest surviving charter of the town was granted in
1194 by Walter de Lacy. To attract citizens from
England it offered attractive privileges to the bur-
gesses, large plots within the town, three acres in the
countryside close by and free access to the river
Boyne. The walls enclosed 113 acres (45 hectares),
making it comparable in size to Bristol, Oxford, New
Ross, Kilkenny, and Dublin. It had at least four
gates and seven towers, and the barbican of St
Laurence’s gate is the finest surviving in Ireland. A
series of at least thirteen murage grants, levying tolls
on goods coming into the town for the construction
and maintenance of the walls, are extant between
1234 and 1424.
Drogheda flourished as a port despite difficulties
with silting and sandbars, a problem it shared with
Dublin. The port records of Chester and Bristol suggest
that the bulk of its trade was across the Irish Sea, but
Drogheda merchants such as the Symcocks and the
Prestons did venture to France, particularly to Bordeaux,
for wine, and in the fifteenth century there was traffic
with Brittany, the Baltic, and Iceland. In the early
years there was a significant export trade in corn and
victuals as supplies to the royal armies campaigning in
Scotlandand Wales. For most of the later Middle Ages
the archbishops of Armagh resided in the manor of
Termonfechin close by, and this added to the town’s
status and prosperity. Occasionally the archbishops
provided the townsmen with safe conducts to travel
and trade with the Ulster Irish.
Wicklow and Arklow declined in importance in the
later Middle Ages due largely to their hinterland being
dominated by the O’Byrnes and O’ Tooles who had
little interest in trade. Dalkey, however, functioned as
the deepwater port of Dublin. Due to the shallowness
of the Liffey estuary, large ships could not berth at
Dublin’s quays, and wine ships in particular had to
anchor at Dalkey and unload on to lighters which car-
ried the wine tuns up the Liffey. Remains of tower
houses and castles suggest that the little port profited
from its deep anchorage.
Wexford (Veigsfjorthr) was an important Viking set-
tlement by the end of the ninth century as archaeolog-
ical excavations have shown. It had trading connections
with Bristol, and the links continued after the town
came under the control of Diarmait mac Máel-na-
mBó in the mid-eleventh century. In 1169 it was the
first town to be taken by Diarmait mac Murchada and