LOUTH TOPOGRAPHY
This county, although the smallest in Ireland, presents several distinguishing features as to its scenery and soil worthy of attention. The southern districts are level, varied by gently swelling elevations, in a state of high cultivation, and interspersed with thriving plantations: to the north the surface rises into the lofty group of the Ravensdale, Cooley, and Carlingford mountains.
The coast from the mouth of the Boyne, which is the southern extremity of the county, presents a broad level strand, stretching northward for several miles to the boldly projecting promontory of Clogher head, at the foot of which is the village of the same name, with a natural harbour that affords shelter to a few fishing yawls. Thence to Dunany head is a sandy bay, in which are a few reefs, covered at high water, but at ebb tide having a dry strand for half a mile beyond them. Dunany point is the southern extremity of Dundalk bay, which sweeps round into the land in a semicircular form, having the harbour and town of Dundalk in its most inland point, and terminating northwards at Cooley point.
The southern and western shores of this fine bay, the mouth of which extends seven miles from point to point, and which measures the same distance in depth to the entrance to Dundalk harbour, are of the same character as those already noticed, broad, shallow, and skirted with a line of low land rising gradually into slight elevations, clothed with verdure and trees.
The northern side of the bay is of a character totally different. Here the mountains rise boldly from the water's edge, covered in their lower parts with wood, but above denuded and heathy. This mountainous tract forms a peninsula that separates the bay of Dundalk from that of Carlingford, which forms the northern boundary of the county. Its character is totally different from that of Dundalk bay; it is long and narrow, extending nearly nine miles inland to Narrow water, which is the entrance to Newry harbour, with an average breadth of l ½ mile, and bordered on both sides by lofty eminences, on the south by the mountain group already described, on the north by those of Mourne, in the county of Down, which are among the highest in Ireland. Both these bays are considered as unsafe for shipping, that of Dundalk from its shoals, that of Carlingford from the sudden and violent flaws of wind that sweep along it from the surrounding cliffs.
Fish of many kinds are caught in great numbers off the shores of this county: the most common species are turbot, cod, haddock, plaice, ling, and herring. There is an oyster fishery in Carlingford bay, the oysters of which are in the highest estimation for their superior flavour, and are sent in large quantities to Dublin and other towns along the coast.
The soil in the flat parts is suitable to every kind of agricultural produce, being a rich vegetable mould, based on marl, limestone, or clay-slate. Northwards it gradually deteriorates, until, on approaching the summits of the mountains, the only vegetable productions are heath and the coarsest grasses. The best land is about Ardee and Louth; there are also extensive tracts of rich soil at Tallonstown, Dundalk, and Castle-Bellingham.
County Louth | Louth Towns and Baronies | Louth Topography | Louth Agriculture | Louth Geology | Louth Rivers | Louth Antiquities