MORNINGTON

MORNINGTON, formerly a parish, now merged into Colpe, and called Colpe-cum-Mornington, in the barony of LOWER DULEEK, county of MEATH, and province of LEINSTER, on the southern bank of the river Boyne, and near the entrance of the harbour of Drogheda, 2 miles (E.) from Drogheda; containing 265 inhabitants. This place is enumerated among the possessions of the abbey of Colpe, at the dissolution, as "the farm of Weisley." It is now merely a fishing village, consisting of 42 houses, a bridge over a stream which empties itself into the Boyne, and a small R. C. chapel, belonging to the union of St. Mary's, Drogheda. Here are the ruins of a church, with a turret at the west end pierced for two bells. On the coast are two very remarkable towers, called "the Lady's Finger" and "the Maiden Tower ;" the former has rather the appearance of a monumental column with a square base, from which rises a round tapering shaft terminating in a cone above a band of masonry. The latter is much higher, and no less remarkable for its slender proportions; it is surrounded by battlements, and supposed to have been erected in the reign of Elizabeth, as a beacon to the port of Drogheda. Mornington gives the titles of Earl and Baron to Marquess Wellesley.

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