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LEINSTER 59
established when William of Orange fought his way
across the fords at Oldbridge.
Oldbridge is only about a mile upstream from
Drogheda, and an obelisk marks the site of the
famous Battle of the Boyne. The battle was decided
before it was fairly begun, because a large force had
been thrown across the bridge at Slane, and thus
turned the Irish position, which lay along the south
bank from opposite the Mattock River to where the
hill rises steep below Oldbridge. Schomberg fell in
the ford above the island, probably some two hundred
yards below the present bridge — fell rallying his
Huguenots like a hero.
No record of brutality sullies that feat of arms;
but at Drogheda, one of the most picturesquely
situated towns in Ireland, and made more picturesque
by the high viaduct which here spans the river, there
are terrible memories connected with those old defences
of which one part remains perfect — St. Laurence's
Gate with its two-storied tower. Here it was that
Cromwell perpetrated the first of those massacres
which disgrace his name. Such of the captured as
were not slain were sent for slaves to the West Indies,
where to-day in certain islands a debased Irish can
be heard from negroes, and Irish names are general
among the negro population.
Yet in that lovely valley it is hard to think of