The Story of the Louth Name

Louth is unusual among Irish places because the county takes its name from the village. The Irish name, Lú, is the modern form of an ancient place name associated with Lugh, one of the principal deities of pre-Christian Irish tradition. Earlier forms of the name include Lughmhaigh, Lughmhadh, and Lughbhadh, and the exact meaning of the oldest forms is uncertain.

The name suggests that the site may have had a connection with the worship of Lugh before Christianity, although there is no archaeological evidence that a shrine to the god actually stood here. What is certain is that Louth became an important Christian centre at a remarkably early date.

According to tradition, St Mochta, a disciple of St Patrick, established a monastery here in the sixth century. Mochta is traditionally said to have died around 535, and the monastery he founded grew into an important religious settlement. The annals record a long succession of abbots at Louth, showing that the monastery remained significant for centuries.

The monastery endured repeated attacks. Viking forces plundered it, and the settlement was burned several times during the twelfth century—in 1148, 1152, 1160, and 1166. The frequency of these attacks is itself evidence of the importance of Louth during the period.

For a time, Louth was also the seat of a bishopric. Eventually its ecclesiastical jurisdiction was absorbed into the dioceses of Clogher and Armagh, but the religious importance of the place continued. The remains of St Mochta's House, together with the ruins of a later medieval monastery, preserve something of that long Christian history.

The Anglo-Norman arrival brought another chapter. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Louth became the centre of a royal manor, linking the ancient settlement to the new political order established in the region. The village remained a local centre even as larger towns such as Dundalk and Drogheda grew around it.

And then there is the county itself.

When the Anglo-Normans organized the territory into counties, they gave this newly defined county the name Louth, taking it from the ancient settlement at its heart. A small village thus gave its name to an entire county—a name that has survived through Gaelic kingdoms, monasteries, Viking raids, Norman conquest, wars, and the modern Irish state.

That makes Louth a fitting place with which to end our ten towns.

Lú carries several layers of Ireland within a single name: the memory of an ancient god, the foundation of an early Christian monastery, centuries of religious and political history, and finally the name of the county itself.

A small village became the name of a county.

Louth is where the Wee County gets its name—and where an ancient name still connects the Ireland of legend with the Ireland of today.