Edward Bruce, the brother of the Scottish Robert, stormed Dundalk after Bannockburn, and lived here, after taking the town, for two years. He died in the engagement fought near Dundalk with the English army, in 1318.
In 1649 Monk held the town for the king against Cromwell.
At the head of Carlingford Lough is Newry, pleasantly situated in a valley overlooked by the Carlingford Mountains. It is one of the most ancient towns in the island, being famed even in Irish bardic literature. It was also the seat of a monastery, where St. Patrick himself, it is said, planted a yew-tree, referred to in no complimentary strain in Swift’s satiric couplet:
“High Church, low steeple,
Dirty streets, and proud people.”
Newry took to itself the admonition, cleaned itself up in later years, and has become in all respects a flourishing modern town.
A Cistercian abbey was founded here in 1175, according to the “Monasticum Hibernica,” but no remains exist to-day to suggest its former importance.
Rostrevor is the chief tourist centre of Carlingford Lough. It is confidently claimed by many to be the most popular resort in all Ireland, which it evidently is.
Moreover, it is a marvellously pretty place of the stage-scenery order, but its attractions are somewhat exaggerated. Its popularity is accounted for by its accessibility to Dublin and Belfast, whose work-worn habitants flee here in large numbers, in season and out. Rostrevor, as might be expected, has its popular legend also. It runs as follows:
“The Bell of St. Bronach, now to be seen on the altar of the Catholic Chapel, has a strangely romantic history. There is a ruined Church of Kilbroney on the hillside, not far from the town. For hundreds of years, the legend of a fairy bell had been current about Kilbroney. It was said that, whenever misfortune threatened the town, the note of a strange, silvery, unearthly sounding bell echoed through the forests. Many heard the bell, but no one succeeded in solving the mystery, or indeed, ever suspected that there was any solution save a supernatural one. In the end of the eighteenth century, however, an ancient tree was blown down, and, in its hollow heart, was found a bronze church-bell of immense size and of great antiquarian value. It was this bell, hidden in the heart of the tree many centuries before, that had sounded its note of death and terror, whenever a storm of unusual force rocked the great tree in whose depths it lay concealed. No doubt it had been hidden in the tree for safety, during some raid of pagan tribes, and by accident, or through the death of the pious ecclesiastic who concealed it, was never removed.”
Carlingford itself, and the celebrated beauty of the Lough, will ever appeal to all lovers of nature and romantic associations.