Drogheda Trade in the 1830s

The port carries on a very extensive trade chiefly with Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and also a very considerable cross-channel trade; the principal exports are corn, flour, oatmeal, cattle, butter, and linen cloth; and the chief imports are timber, slates, coal, rock-salt, iron, bark, herrings, and dried fish, with manufactured goods of all kinds. According to the returns for the year ending Jan. 5th, 1835, there were shipped from this port, 126,380 loads of meal, 42,500 bushels of wheat, 3000 barrels of peas, 37,000 sacks of flour, 2500 barrels of barley, 22,000 barrels of oats, 13,000 crates of eggs, 600 firkins of butter, 4100 cows, 12,000 sheep, 39,000 pigs, and 500 barrels of ale. The number of vessels in the foreign trade that entered inwards, during that year, was 14 British and 3 foreign, and two British vessels cleared outwards. In the trade with Great Britain and across the channel, 494 ships, including steam-vessels, entered inwards, and 462 cleared outwards; and in the trade with various ports in Ireland, 42 vessels entered inwards and 23 cleared outwards. The gross amount of the customs' duties, during the year 1835, was £9476. 19. 3., and for 1836, £13,382. 13. 2.; that of the excise duties collected in the district, in 1835, was £75,007. 19. 3.

The number of vessels registered as belonging to the port is 40, of an aggregate burden of 3763 tons. A considerable trade is carried on with Liverpool, between which place, Glasgow, and this port, five steam-packets, of about 350 tons each, are constantly plying. The harbour, for the improvement of which the Commissioners of Public Works have granted £10,000, has been rendered much more commodious, and is in a state of progressive improvement; a breakwater is about to be formed and a lighthouse erected. The river has been deepened four feet by a steam dredging vessel, calculated to raise 1000 tons hourly; it is navigable to the bridge for vessels of 200 tons', and above it for lighters of 70 tons', burden. A patent slip is also in progress of construction, and a large iron-foundry for steam machinery has been erected. The value of these improvements may be correctly estimated from the fact that, within the last seven years, the trade of the port has been more than doubled. The inland trade is also greatly facilitated by the Boyne navigation to Navan, which it is intended to extend to Lough Erne.

The Grand Northern Trunk railway from Dublin, for which an act of parliament has been obtained, will enter the town at Pitcher Hill, in the parish of St. Mary. The markets are on Thursday and Saturday; and fairs for cattle of every kind, and especially for horses of superior breed, are held annually on May 12th, June 22nd, Aug. 26th, and Oct. 29th, by ancient charter; and by a recent patent also on March 10th, April 11th, Nov. 21st, and Dec. 19th, when large quantities of wool and various other articles of merchandise are exposed for sale. The corn market is a very neat and commodious building, erected after a design by the late Mr. F. Johnston. There are convenient shambles for butchers' meat, and adjacent is a fish market. The linen-hall is a spacious building of brick, containing five halls.

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