page_title: Swords, Dublin
section_title: Landscape
hierarchical_section_title: Swords, Dublin / Geography / Landscape
caption_attribution_description: Swords Main st. c. 1940
context_page_description: Swords is the county town of Fingal and a large suburban town on the Northside of Dublin. Lying ten kilometres north of the city centre, on the Ward River, and reputedly founded around 560 A.D., it features a restored medieval castle, a holy well from which it takes its name, a round tower and a Norman tower. Near to Dublin Airport, Swords is also home to one of the Dublin region's larger shopping centres, The Pavilions, several other retail facilities and a range of industries. Suburban housing estates lie around the town centre, with several parks and many schools and sporting facilities.
  The name "Swords" is also applicable to a townland, to the civil parish, within the historic County Dublin, and to the local electoral area.
context_section_description: Swords is situated roughly in the centre of the modern county of Fingal and the ancient barony of Nethercross.
  The Ward River, coming from County Meath, runs west to east to near the centre of the town, and then turns to run north, before flowing into the Broad Meadow Water or Broadmeadow River to the east of the town, across the former northern road. A small stream joins the Ward near the town centre and the holy well.  The Broadmeadow, also flowing from Meath, borders the north of the town. It runs from Dunshaughlin in the west and across the north of Swords, before receiving the Ward and flowing into the wide Broadmeadow Estuary, then into the Irish Sea past Malahide.  The estuary is crossed by a railway embankment and bridge from Malahide.
  Swords is surrounded by a protected green belt. Dublin Airport has prevented the town from expanding further south and the large Broadmeadow Estuary and Malahide beyond limit expansion further east. To the north and west of Swords there is sparsely-populated, relatively flat, farmland.
caption: Main Street, Swords in 1940
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