By Sean Collins

It took fifteen years but the restoration and expansion of Drogheda’s newly completed Civic Offices has transformed Fair Street and given the town a new point of focus where perhaps one day members of a new local authority, a Town or City Council, will hold their meetings.  

That’s a matter for the politicians of course, but historian Sean Collins has had a look back through the records at what has been happening in the Fair Street buildings over the last 300 years or so:

The description of the now completed Louth County Council buildings on Fair Street boasted, and rightly so, “The redevelopment of Drogheda Civic Offices included the complete refurbishment and creative re-use of two existing unoccupied protected structures, the Community Services Building and the former Borough Chamber, within the architectural conservation area of Fair Street.

The construction of a modern New Link Building sensitively connects these historic structures together to create a contemporary and exemplary civic office complex.” Drogheda as the largest town in Ireland well merited such a building.

Departing County Manager Joan Martin and her team are to be congratulated on what is surely the revival of Fair Street and the buildings we all called the “Sister’s”, completing the project first started with the refurbishment of the Corn Market [1796] building designed by Francis Johnson and modernised in 1999 -2000.

In 1746 Mr. Shepard built what has been described as the grandest house in Fair Street. A big palazzo style house of five bays and three stories. It was featured on Ravell’s Map of 1749, with the entrance to the centre later moved to the side.

Acquired by the military in 1796, perhaps due to the unsettled political situation, the United Irishmen were spoiling for rebellion and there was no accommodation at Millmount, the barrack building which now houses the museum wasn’t built until 1808.The barracks at Fair Street had a drill yard and hospital.

Fair Street, known as Horse Lane until 1772 when by demolishing part of the town wall at the West end, created Fair Gate to relieve traffic in the area on Horse Fair day.

The barracks was named the Royal Barracks in the 1840s. Vacant by 1850, it was a former home of Doctor Patrick Curtis, Archbishop of Armagh. St. Peter’s Parish established a boys’ school and an industrial school there.

At the invitation of the then Archbishop of Armagh, Doctor Joseph Dixon, on the 8 November 1855 four Daughters of Charity from Paris arrived in Drogheda to a tremendous welcome, two were French, one English and one Irish.

By 1886, according to Bassett’s Directory, the Sisters had a day school with 100 resident day boys and 400 locals, and a school for factory girls.

In 1894 the Sisters had a major building and refurbishment programme carried out by a local building contractor, Thomas Gogarty of West Street. The two red brick buildings now refurbished as part of the Civic Offices were built then. The Villa Maria and St. Vincent’s School.

In 1955 the Sisters of Charity celebrated 100 years in Drogheda and Ireland and, in a sermon at a mass of thanksgiving attended by Archbishop Dalton, Rev. J. Cahalan told the gathering that on their arrival the Sisters lost no time in attending to the needs of the poor in the town and soon their white “Cornettes” were to be seen moving through the town’s streets wherever the need was most.

[The cornette was retained as a distinctive piece of clothing into modern times by the Daughters of Charity founded by St. Vincent de Paul in the mid-17th century. See picture above.]

St. Vincent de Paul had advised that the sister’s monasteries were the houses of the sick and their cloisters the streets of the town. In 2005 the Sisters celebrated 150 years in Drogheda and Mayor Tommy Murphy, a past pupil of St. Vincent’s, welcomed Sister Evelyn the Superioress from Paris.

The Sister’s presence diminished in Drogheda at this time and Louth County Council purchased their Fair Street premises in 1996. Sister Mary Corbally remained active in Moneymore and Sister Cait Fitzgerald established the Homeless Aid shelter for homeless men on the North Strand in 1982.

Sadly the nuns are gone from Drogheda now, but their legacy lives on in Fair Street.