Geography
Newry lies in the most south-eastern part of both Ulster and Northern Ireland. Approximately half of the city lies in County Down and the other half in County Armagh. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 made all of Newry part of County Down, but this Act has since been repealed.
The city sits in a valley, nestled between the Mourne Mountains to the east, and the Ring of Gullion to the south-west, both of which are designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Newry also lies in the shadow of the Cooley Mountains to the south east. The Clanrye River runs through the centre of town, parallel to thecanal. The city also lies at the extreme northernmost end of Carlingford Lough, where the canal enters the sea at Victoria Locks.
[edit]History
The English name of the city comes from the original Irish Iúr Chinn Trá (in older spelling, Iubhar Chinn Trábha), which translates as "the yew at the head of the strand", which relates to anapocryphal story that Saint Patrick planted a yew tree there in the 5th century. In modern Irish, the full name of the town is rarely used; instead it is abbreviated to An tIúr (pronounced [ən̠ʲ tʲuːɾˠ]).
The small medieval town was enlarged in 1142 with the rebuilding of an older Patrician monastery, and there is strong evidence of continual human habitation in the area from 6th century. The first monastery only lasted until 1162, when it was burned to the ground,however it was not completely destroyed & it was later restored to some degree and enlarged by a Cistercian monastery. This monastery itself was later converted to a collegiate church in 1543, before being surrendered to the crown in 1548.
In 1550, an English mercenary, Nicholas Bagenal, fled to Ireland after a murder in Yorkshire in which he was involved. After some time he reached a high status, was granted a pardon, and became Marshall of the army. He secured a 21 year lease on the property confiscated from the Cistercians.[5] It is said he later built a castle in Newry but there is not one scrap of documented evidence to prove this.It is recorded however that he did restore Newry Castle which was first built by De Courcey in 1198, the Castle was built within the Abbey grounds and fronted the Northern gate of the Abbey. There are still remains of this the original Cistercian monastery still standing when Bagenal acquired the Abbey lands. It is presumed that Bagenal used the Abbot's house as his castle. Locating that house is the key to this story, however a building discovered quite recently was claimed to be the Abbot's house. This quickly repudiated by a local historian Oliver Curran.[6] The building however was sadly transformed into that of the supposed Bagenal Castle, because it was one of only two Cistercian Choirs ever discovered in the North of Ireland. Many structures of the abbey can still be seen today; many of the old walls are still standing and a small medieval church can be found in the grounds of the nearby convent which once part of the abbey. Mention of the convent can be seen in the Bagenal papers. The site was said to consist of a 'church, steeple, and cemetery, chapter-house, dormitory and hall, two orchards and one garden, containing one acre, within the precincts of the college'.[citation needed] The remains of parts of the great Cistercian church of Newry can be found today on Castle Street, near to theLIDL store,which was built above the undercrofts of Newrys Cistercian church. Mc Canns 2nd bakery which atands at the entrance to Lidl now converted to a museum & which was first opened as a bakery on the church site in 1896, at this date it incorporated the choir and part of the adjoining main Cathedral of Newry, which was referred to by Harris in his 1740 Ancient and Present history of down. It is interesting to note that at this date which is just 20 years after the Bagenal dynasty in Newry ended Harris gives no indication or mention of a Bagenal Castle, yet he mentions all other Castles in the County of Down. A rental roll, dated 1575, provides a unique insight into life in the town at the time. It listed the names of the tenants in 'the High Street', 'tenements within the Fort' and the Irish Street without the Fort'.[citation needed] These three distinct areas also appear in a map of the same time, along with a fake drawing of the castle.[citation needed]
During the Williamite War, the forces of King James II set fire to the town in 1689, while retreating from William.[citation needed]
The town was rebuilt shortly afterwards, and its fortunes changed dramatically. A further period of economic prosperity, evidence of which can be seen in the many fine buildings and public places that can still be seen today.[7]
By 1881 the population of Newry had reached 15,590.[1]
Newry Urban District Council was unusual in that during the period from the 1920s to the 1960s it was one of only a handful of councils in Northern Ireland which had a majority of councillors from the Catholic/Nationalist community. (The others were Strabane UDC and a handful of rural district councils.) The reason according to Michael Farrell was that this community formed such a large majority in the town, around 80% of the population, that it was impossible to gerrymander. Also an oddity was that for a time it was controlled by theIrish Labour Party, after the left wing of the Northern Ireland Labour Party defected to them in the 1940s.[8]
[edit]The Troubles
Main article: The Troubles in Newry
Newry saw a number of violent incidents during the conflict known as the Troubles. These were ongoing into the late 90's and even in 2010 - such as bomb scares and car bombs.
See also: The Troubles in Killeen, for information on incidents at the border and customs post at Newry on the border with the Republic of Ireland and close to Newry. The British Army moved in during the 1950s[citation needed]. In 2003, the hilltop watch towers were taken down. The Army finally withdrew from the area in 25 June 2007 when they closed their final base at Bessbrook.[9][10] As there are no garrisons in the area the Army has no official presence in Newry or South Armagh since the end of Operation Banner.
[edit]Demographics
Although officially a city, Newry is classified as a large town by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (i.e. with population between 18,000 and 75,000 people). On Census day (29 April 2001), there were 27,433 people living in Newry. Of these:
- 26.2% were aged under 16 years and 16.0% were aged 60 and over
- 48.5% of the population were male and 51.6% were female;
- 89.6% were from a Roman Catholic background and 9.4% were from a Protestant background.[11]
- 5.5% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed.[12]
- 99% of people are European.
[edit]Economy
Newry has a reputation as one of the best provincial shopping-towns in the north of Ireland, with the Buttercrane Centre and The Quays attracting large numbers of shoppers from as far away as Cork.[13]
In 2006 Newry topped the league of house prices increases across the whole United Kingdom over the last decade, as prices in the city had increased by 371% since 1996.[14] The city itself has become markedly more prosperous in recent years. Unemployment has reduced from over 26% in 1991 to scarcely 2% in 2008.[15]
Since the inception of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, shoppers from the Republic of Ireland have increasingly been crossing the border to Newry in order to buy cheaper goods. This owes to a combination of factors: the harsh budget in the Republic of Ireland in October 2008; the growing strength of the euro against the pound sterling and VAT reductions in the United Kingdom, compared with increases in the Republic of Ireland. This remarkable increase in cross-border trade has become so widespread that it has lent its name to a general phenomenon known as the Newry effect. In December 2008, The New York Times described Newry as "the hottest shopping spot within the European Union’s open borders, a place where consumers armed with euros enjoy a currency discount averaging 30 percent or more".[16]
However the increased flow of trade has led to resultant tailbacks, sometimes several kilometers long, on approach roads from the south. This has created huge traffic and parking problems in Newry and the surrounding area. It has also become a political issue, with some politicians in the Republic of Ireland claiming that such cross-border shopping is "unpatriotic".[17]
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