Dreary Drogheda - Village Magazine

PB April-May 2025

April-May 2025 43

Dreary Drogheda

This great town needs to hammer the delinquents

who allow buildings to become derelict

By Dom Gradwell

rogheda is a national centre of

dereliction. Despite being the

largest and fastest growing

town in Ireland

Drogheda nestles on the

banks of the fabled River Boyne, a few

kilometres from where it pours into the sea.

After it received its charter from Walter de

Lacy in the twelfth century, Drogheda built

up a storied reputation as an outpost of the

Pale with strong allegiances to the crown.

This fealty led directly to a confrontation

with bogeyman Oliver Cromwell who stormed

the town in 1649 and slaughtered the crown

forces. Some claim that the town’s population

too was mercilessly put to the sword. Others

downplay.

In 2025 the city faces dierent travails: a

perfect storm of poor planning, a legislative

downgrade of the Borough, disregard by

central and local government and an

associated dramatic decline in the industrial

and latterly retail bases of the town.

Once grand, it has become a national

centre of dereliction. Ironically it is also the

largest and fastest growing town in Ireland.

It’s population is 45,000, twice the number

in 1979.

Regardless of which way you enter the

town you are faced with dereliction and

decay with dilapidating historic and iconic

buildings on every artery approaching from

the M1.

As part of its ongoing series looking at

who’s causing urban dereliction, in a housing

crisis, here’s a look at egregious cases in

Drogheda.

This building is owned by local

businessman Harry McArdle. McArdle,

probably best known as founder of Height for

Hire and the owner of several properties in

the Drogheda area.

The last planning application on this site

was for for apartments and was granted in

2015 at which point the main building on the

site was intact and structurally sound. In the

intervening decade the building has suered

signiﬁcant ﬁre damage which has led to a

roof collapse, and the surrounds of the

building have been allowed to become

completely overgrown. It has become a

haven for fly tipping and anti-social

behaviour and was the scene of a tragic

fatality a number of years ago.

McArdle’s other property assets include a

prominent town-centre building at the

junction of the main thoroughfare, West St,

and Dominic Street which has lain vacant for

almost a decade since it was vacated by

Bernard English jeweller’s which operated

there for many years. Planning permission

was granted for refurbishment of the

building, including the former shop, on West

St as apartments in April 2023 but two years

on there is little evidence of anything

happening on the site. It is close to the

former Brady’s Department store (see

below). Last year Newstalk estimated there

are more than 100 empty sites in the town

centre alone – with the area Narrow West

Street home to up to 20 vacant premises and

an empty shopping centre.

The centre of the town, stretching from the

Trinity St approach all the way through the

main thoroughfare, once known by shoppers

as the golden quarter mile encompassing

Narrow West St and West St, and continuing

towards the medieval barbican gate known

as Laurence’s Gate, must rank among the

most neglected neighbourhoods anywhere

in the country.

Although recent efforts by individual

property owners and some eorts by Louth

County Council have begun to show results,

the decay which set in during the speculation

heyday of the Celtic Tiger is likely to take

decades to reverse.

A large chunk of Drogheda’s southern

urban population is situated in Meath and

managed by Meath County Council from

Navan. However, thanks to a decision taken

by Phil Hogan to ‘reform’ local government,

Drogheda Corporation was abolished in

2014 and power shifted to Louth County

Council which manages the aairs of the

town of Drogheda from its smaller sister town

of Dundalk.

Donaghy’s Mill

Perched on the northern bank of the River

Boyne just o Trinity Street, the imposing

structure known as Donaghy’s Mill was once

a thriving hub of industry and employment.

Despite lying vacant and derelict for a

number of decades and having succumbed

in 2019 to a rampant ﬁre that destroyed its

roof structure, the mill was only added to the

Louth County Council Derelict Sites Register

in 2024. An Taisce rates Donaghy’s Mill in its

top ten endangered sites in the country.

The owner of the building, local

businessman Neil Kelly, having purchased

the property in 2023, is reputed to have

plans to develop a hotel complex on the site

to go along with his other entertainment and

leisure interests in the area.

The ‘Corner House’ on the junction t the

pproch from the north tht leds to the

Lourdes Hospitl

ENVIRONMENT

44 April-May 2025

April-May 2025 45

Georgin ‘West Gte House’, owned by Louth County Council

summer as a part-demolition of the building

was ordered by the Council due to falling

masonry. Serious structural issues meant

the whole building was apparently in

imminent danger of collapse, posing a huge

risk to the public. The building was partially

demolished, closing the street off for

approximately 3 months, and remains

propped up and hoarded o while the public

awaits the outcome. It is not clear whether

the Council had the expertise necessary to

integrate conservation and safety

imperatives in the best way to serve the

public interest and in the spirit of the

protected buildings legislation. Brady’s is a

classic case of property Monopoly, having

changed hands many times in the last 20

years as the property frenzy ebbed and

ﬂowed. The current owner is local developer,

Leonard Kinsella, whose companies are

amassing considerable revenue from

accommodating IPAS recipients in several

locations in the Drogheda catchment.

Almost directly opposite Brady’s is the

Abbey Centre, an enclosed shopping centre

built in the 1970s and stretching all the way

Kelly has experience when it comes to

dereliction in Drogheda as he is the owner of

several properties in Narrow West Street

which is the main westerly entrance to the

town centre. Narrow West Street has become

the poster boy for the local Derelict Drogheda

campaign, an activist group set up to shine

a light on the level of decay in the town — due

to its sheer volume dilapidation.

Once a thriving cluster of local businesses,

the street has been allowed to fall into

comprehensive decay. The buildings owned

by Kelly, according to a report in a local

online news outlet Drogheda Life last year,

would have been renovated and be operating

as a major night-time hub, had it not been for

a decision by a new ﬁre ocer to overturn the

approach of a previous incumbent in the post

allowing him to proceed. Village has

highlighted the need for ﬂexible application

of the ﬁre regulations to allow restoration of

older buildings like this.

But these decisions were taken almost a

decade ago and nothing has happened

since. Kelly, who previously did renovate the

Star and Crescent Centre nearby, claims that

plans for the buildings on Narrow West Street

are now being held up by the courts due to a

long-running dispute between him and a

business partner.

Two very prominent buildings in the

Narrow West Street area, West Gate House

and the former O’Reilly Brothers hardware

store are both now in the hands of Louth

County Council, the former having been

controlled by the OPW until quite recently.

Both have been lying idle for years although

there are eorts afoot by the Council to

renovate West Gate House using THRIVE

funding.

O’Reilly’s was tellingly purchased by

Louth County Council in 2007 for €8.5m with

the intention of constructing a multi-storey

car park.

The last tenants of the vacant building

were St Vincent de Paul. It has now been

earmarked for a ‘Digital Hub’ but it all seems

to be taking too long.

The former Brady’s Department Store

building at the end of Narrow West St, a

protected structure, brought the danger of

dereliction and neglect into sharp focus last

Harry McArdle,

Neil Kelly, Colin

McManus,

Mel Kilraine,

Leonard

Kinsella,

Eamon Waters

and…Louth

County Council

Donghy’s Mill from bove: photo Anthony

Murphy, Mythicl Irelnd

Former O’Reilly Brothers, now owned by Louth County

Council

Nrrow West Street: Fergl Quinn tried

to rejuvente for  TV progrmme, now

owned by Neil Kelly

44 April-May 2025

April-May 2025 45

from West Street to the River Boyne, prime

town-centre real estate. However, its current

owner, Northern Ireland businessman, Colin

McManus, has allowed the retail space to

empty out and the building to deteriorate to

such a degree that the Council ﬁnally issued

a Section 8 Notice in February to add the site

to the Derelict Sites Register.

All of the areas above are part of, or

immediately adjacent to, the ‘West Gate

Vision’ project, an ambitious plan by Louth

County Council to revitalise the public realm

in the western end of the main drag in

Drogheda. This multimillion euro project was

only given the green light by An Bord

Derelict Sites Register. Mr Kilraine, a retired

solicitor, also has the distinction of owning

a second property entered on the same

In 2021 the Circuit Court gave Kilraine

leave to seek an injunction evicting up to 100

“foreign” tenants in a building on Dublin’s

Belvedere Place. Kilraine said he had been

gradually emptying the building of legal

tenants with a view to refurbishing residential

units and selling the property after interest

had been shown in it by a potential purchaser.

Units that had been boarded up as previous

tenants had moved out had been broken

open.

No roll call of derelict property-owners

would be complete without the mention of

Eamon Waters, the serial property buyer who

has been scooping up properties all over

Dublin and beyond. Waters, from Beauparc

near Slane, made his fortune thanks to his

involvement with the Greenstar and Panda

Waste ﬁrms, sold for the inevitable billion

euro a few years ago. Waters, Irish Times

businessman of the month June 2021,

turned his attention to Drogheda and

swooped to buy a considerable tract of the

town centre including the Laurence Centre

and properties comprising the former

McPhail’s pub, a famous town-centre

watering hole with a beer garden. Waters

has, to his shame, let the property become

derelict.

Dom Gradwell is spokesperson for the

Drogheda Vacancy and Dereliction Task

Force.

Brdy’s Deprtment Store: before

(bove) nd fter (below), now owned

by Leonrd Kinsell

McPhil’s Pub, owned by Emon

Wters’ Pillrdle

Allwell House, Duke Street, owned

by Mel Kilrine

English’s Jewellers, West Street,

owned by Hrry McArdle

Abbey Shopping Centre, to be dded to

Derelict Sites Register, owned by Colin

McMnus

Brod view of Nrrow West Street,

owned by Neil Kelly

Georgin house, Plce Street,

owned by Mel Kilrine

Pleanála in the last few weeks. However if the

privately owned buildings don’t receive

some serious attention in the very near

future the vision may blur.

Further east along West Street, just behind

St Peter’s Church, probably best known for

accommodating the head of Saint Oliver

Plunkett, on Duke Street, a steep side street

stands the ironically named Allwell House. It

is a proud building with a colourful past,

locally referred to as St Philomena’s School.

Owned by Mel Kilraine, this ﬁne structure —

clearly visible from the main street — has

been falling down for years, yet only in 2024

was it added to the Lough County Council