"Although the top sites in the region can easily be explored as day trips from Dublin, you'll get greater rewards by spending some time in the counties, Drogheda makes an excellent base for must see sights such as Newgrange."

"Drogheda is easily the most interesting place north of Dublin."

"With it's wonderful old pubs, fine restaurants, narrow streets, good transport and numerous sleeping options, Drogheda is an excellent base for exploring the world class attractions that surround it in the Boyne Valley e.g. Newgrange, Tara, Trim, Kells, Battle of the Boyne and Monasterboice.

That's not what we have to say, that's what it says in the Lonely Planet 2008.

This is a town has so many things to see and do it's not funny. What's also not funny is the negative attitude the majority of Droghedians have towards their own town but we won't mention anything more on that.

Initally the town was founded by the Anglo- Norman Lord Hugh de Lacey on the North side of the river Boyne . A separate town also developed on the south side of the river. The two towns were joined in 1412 which is why Drogheda 's local council is a borough council as opposed to a town council.

The Norse did settle here before that and the whole town is riddled with passages, mounds and tombs from much earlier times (none of which are open to the public). Needless to say you can't so much as stick a tree in your garden without an archaeologist being present.

The town had the largest area of a settlement protected by a wall in Ireland and so (at least officially) it has a "walled town status" in Ireland. Unfortunately most of the wall has disappeared at this stage but if you know where to look there are still plenty of above ground bits of it left (almost all the wall foundations are still intact Ð except where some modern road and shopping centres were built).

The fanciest bit of the wall still left is up on Laurence Street where a barbican (incorrectly called Laurence's Gate Ð seeing as the gate is long gone) still stands, despite the best efforts of certain sections of the towns businesses to get it flattened to allow lorries to drive up the street and on to Drogheda Port. Thankfully instead it was decided to clean up the site and so this very impressive structure survived where many other things in the town did not.

Another nice thing the Borough council decided to do was to transform the old Franciscan church, just down the street from Laurence's Gate, into a Gallery, which they now call "The Highlanes Gallery". They have free exhibitions of local painters as well as some paintings on-loan from the National Gallery which they change four times a year. There are also some very interesting paintings from the seventeen, eighteen and nineteen hundreds of Drogheda which document the changes that have taken place here over the years. They've still kept the original alter in the church and added a cafŽ next door.

Some other sections of the wall can be seen at the old Saint Mary's church (after the Protestants moved in and took the existing churches, the Catholics eventually built other ones which they called the same name hence two St. Peter's Churches and two St. Mary's Churches). The walls surrounding this church is where England's greatest republican, Oliver Cromwell, breached, in order to sack the town in 1649. The graveyard inside the walls have some very old and morbid gravestones which are worth a look.

The town walls also exist around Millmount where the British army were garrisoned until Ireland gained its independence. There is a local belief that Amergin Gluingeal (the Gaedhel's first poet) was buried under this mound as well as amongst other theories, that it is aligned with the other mounds in the Boyne Valley. Whichever way you want to look at it at the moment there is a Martello Tower (built during Napoleon I reign in France) on top of the hill, which is nick-named the "cup and saucer" by the locals. The tower is now opened to the public as part of the tour to the local folk museum almost next door to it, and in fairness the view is really good from their on a sunny day (of which Drogheda is allocated four per year) as the surrounding countryside is very flat.

Down from Millmount (or just up from the half of John's Street that wasn't destroyed when the duel carriageway was stuck down the middle of the town again in the 1980's) a former jungle of ivy was removed to reveal the last remaining gate in the town, the Butter Gate. The whole top section of it was knocked a long time previously in order to render it "safe" but what remains is still impressive.

It's a pity that some funds couldn't be allocated to at the very least, mark on the paving and road where the town walls once stood so as to make people aware of their town's past but maybe in the future.

As I said at the start, the town was originally two towns and as a result had two tholsels (council administrative centres) one where Millmount is and the second where the current tholsel stands on the junction between West St, Laurence St, Shop St, and Peter's St. The current tholsel was built in 1770 replacing the previous wooden tholsel.

At the moment this tholsel is lying idle because people in the town are trying to figure out what to do with it, which is a pity, as it is smack bang in the middle of the town and deserves to be used as some form of a centre to benefit the town.