page_title: Dundalk
section_title: After the Acts of Union
hierarchical_section_title: Dundalk / History / After the Acts of Union
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Patrick´s Cathedral in Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland Deutsch: St. Patrick´s Kathedrale in Dundalk, Co. Louth, Irland
context_page_description: Dundalk is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. It is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is near the border with Northern Ireland, equidistant between Dublin and Belfast. In the 2016 census, the population was 39,004.
  Having been inhabited since the Neolithic period, the town was established as a Norman stronghold in the 12th century following the Norman invasion of Ireland, and became the northernmost outpost of The Pale in the Late Middle Ages. The town came to be nicknamed the "Gap of the North" where the northernmost point of the province of Leinster meets the province of Ulster. It has associations with the mythical warrior hero Cú Chulainn and the motto on the town's coat of arms is Mé do rug Cú Chulainn cróga "I gave birth to brave Cú Chulainn". The modern street layout dates from the early 18th century and largely owes its form to Lord Limerick.
context_section_description: Following the Act of Union, which came into force on 1 January 1801, The 19th century saw industrial expansion in the town (see Economy) and the construction of a number of buildings, which still stand today and have become landmarks in the town: the Presbyterian church (1839), the former Methodist church (1834), the Roman Catholic churches of St Patrick (1890), St Malachy (1862), St Nicholas (1860), and St Joseph (1890), the Court House (completed in 1819), Dundalk Gaol (now the Garda Station; completed in 1855), the Town Hall (completed in 1865), and the Louth County Infirmary (now part of Dundalk Grammar School, completed in 1834). The first railway links arrived when the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway opened a line from Quay Street to Castleblayney in 1849 and by 1860 the company operated a route northwest to Derry. Also in 1849, the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway opened a station in Dundalk, now called Clarke Station. Following a series of mergers, both lines were incorporated into the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) in 1876.
  While the established and merchant classes prospered, the general population suffered from poverty. A typhus epidemic struck in the 1810s, potato-crop failures in the 1820s caused famine, and a cholera epidemic struck in the 1830s. During the Great Famine of the 1840s, the town did not suffer to the same extent as the west and south of Ireland. Cereal-based agriculture, new industries, construction projects, and the recent arrival of the railway all contributed to sparing the town of its worst effects. Nevertheless, so many people died in the Dundalk Union Workhouse that the graveyard was quickly filled. A second graveyard was opened on the Ardee Road—now known as the Dundalk Famine Graveyard—which is known to contain approximately 4,000 bodies. It was closed in 1905 and was left derelict until the 21st Century, when local volunteers worked to restore it. 
  In 1858, a ship, the Mary Stoddart, was wrecked in Dundalk Bay during a storm. In attempting to rescue the crew, Captain James Joseph Kelly and three volunteer crew drowned when the storm overturned their boat. Five of the Mary Stoddart crew were also lost, while 11 were eventually rescued. 20 years later, a monument known as the Kelly Monument was erected in Roden Place in their memory, which still stands today.
  The latter part of the 19th Century was dominated by the Irish Home Rule movement and Dundalk became a focal point of the politics of the time. The Irish National Land League held a demonstration in Dundalk on New Year's Day, 1881, considered the largest gathering ever seen in the town. The town had become increasingly and overtly nationalistic—for example, the Dundalk Democrat & People's Journal newspaper, founded in 1849, had the motto "Ireland for the Irish" on its masthead, while for the centenary of the 1798 rebellion, a monument called the 'Maid of Erin' was erected in the Market Square outside the courthouse, where it still stands today.
  As the Home Rule movement developed, the sitting Home Rule League MP, Philip Callan, fell afoul of party leader Charles Stewart Parnell, who travelled to Dundalk to oversee efforts to have Callan unseated. Parnell's candidate, Joseph Nolan, defeated Callan in the election of 1885, after a campaign of voter suppression and intimidation on both sides. Following the split in the Irish Parliamentary Party, the leading anti-Parnellite, Tim Healy, won the North Louth seat in 1892, defeating Nolan (who had stayed loyal to Parnell). The campaign, predicted by Healy to be "the nastiest fight in Ireland", saw some of the worst political violence known to have occurred in Dundalk, with running battles and mass brawls in the streets between Parnellites, 'Healyites', and 'Callanites'—supporters of Philip Callan who was trying to regain his seat.
  In 1910, on the accession of George V to the English throne, the local High Sheriff, accompanied by police and soldiers, led a proclamation to the new king at the Market Square. The ceremony was interrupted by local Sinn Féin members, who raised a tricolour 
caption: St. Patrick's Church, Dundalk
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