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County Louth · Leinster

Ardee

Baile Átha Fhirdhia

town of Ferdia's ford, after the champion Ferdia, said to have fallen here after a four-day fight with Cúchulainn; Joyce agrees and notes the old English form Atherdee

👥 5,478 (census 2022) 🏔 County Louth Source: Wikipedia ↗
The story

A medieval walled town on the River Dee in Louth, on the edge of the Pale, named for the ford where Cúchulainn and Ferdia are said to have fought for four days; a bronze of the pair stands on Bridge Street. Ardee Castle is the largest fortified medieval tower house in Ireland. Nearby is the Jumping Church of Kildemock, whose wall local tradition says leapt three feet in 1715 to shut out the grave of an excommunicated man.

County Louth through the ages →
The history of Ardee

The town shows development from the 13th century, though much of the medieval fabric has gone. A corporation is first mentioned in a charter of 1378, and the town received a royal charter from Henry V in 1414. It lay on the 15th-century Pale frontier between Dundalk and Kells. Hatch's Castle, a late 14th-century fortified house, is the older of its two castles; Ardee Castle, once St Leger's Castle, dates from around the 15th century and was later a prison and then the courthouse until 2006. The parliamentary borough sent two MPs to the Irish Commons until it was disfranchised under the Acts of Union.

A trust founded by Erasmus Smith paid for a boys' school in 1806 and a girls' school in 1817, open to Protestant and Catholic children alike; it joined the National School system in 1954. The Ardee Concert Band, founded in 1860, is the third oldest concert band in Ireland.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Ardee ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castles and monuments within 15 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

Worth seeing nearby
  • Faughart · Where Edward Bruce, King of Ireland for two years, was killed in 1318 — on the hill of St Brigid's birthplace.
  • The Boyne · 1 July 1690 (12 July new style): William beats James at Oldbridge. Fewer died than at Aughrim a year later, but this is the battle everyone remembers.
  • Monasterboice · Muiredach's Cross (the finest high cross in Ireland, a 10th-century Bible carved in stone) and a round tower still standing after a Viking burning in 1097.
  • Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange) · Home of the Dagda, chief of the Tuatha Dé Danann, won by Aengus, god of love, who asked to stay 'a day and a night', meaning all days and all nights. In the older telling Aengus plays the trick on his foster-father Elcmar; later versions make the victim the Dagda himself.
  • Knockbridge — Cú Chulainn's death · The standing stone Cú Chulainn tied himself to so he would die on his feet, facing his enemies. Only when a raven landed on his shoulder did they dare approach.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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