Where
Pitcher Hill Barrack Street-Pitcher Hill Steps Drogheda LouthNaming a place
The Anglo-Norman name, Novus Pons or ‘New Bridge’, distinguished it from Vetus Pons or Old Bridge further up the river, now spelled Oldbridge.
The name Droichead Átha predates the Anglo-Norman arrival and translates as ‘bridge of the ford’. It may have originally referred to Oldbridge which was located at the tidal limits of the River Boyne where the river could be bridged and forded at low tide. (Oldbridge is now located (in current maps) – at the site of the Battle of the Boyne to the east of Drogheda town)
Drogheda was referred to as Tredagh in the early modern period; Barnabe Goche described his map as a ‘plott of the town of Tredagh’ in 1574; Gerard Boate referred to Drogheda as Tredagh in Ireland’s Natural History, written in 1645, published in Dublin in 1726.
The name ‘Drogheda’ was also used from the early years of the history of the town. The recorded spelling varied; Drocheda in 1203, Drohheda in 1212, Droghed in 1215, Droheda in 1217 and, in 1336, its modern spelling.