Mornington (Irish: Baile Uí Mhornáin, meaning 'town of the mariner')[2] is a coastal village on the estuary of the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland approximately 5 km downriver from the centre of Drogheda.

However current licences now run only for the life of the holder making them without commercial value and given the age profile of licence-holders and the delay in the resumption of fishing will inevitably lead to a situation where there are none left to resume the tradition.

The fishing involved a particular currach-style boat or punt (also called a pram,[21] or more commonly locally, a canoe) and a mussel rake with a twenty-foot pole, dredged by hand similar to that on the River Conwy in North Wales.

[23] A fish-meal factory was set up at the Crooke in 1968[24] by a Scottish concern with support from Bord Iascaigh Mhara to process fish from the herring industry out of Clogherhead and Skerries.

[36] It was first recorded being a ruin in 1622,[37] and part of its remains, the West gable end wall with a turret atop pierced for two bells, can still be found in the old graveyard adjoining.

The Martyrology of Tallaght, compiled c. 800 A.D., mentions a Saint Aithcáin of Inber Colptha,[41] nar' clói chathgreim ('whom no battle-might vanquished'), whose feast-day was 16 June.

Traditionally wells dedicated to the saint in Ireland held a patron/pattern day on St John's Eve (23 June) coinciding with the ancient celebration of mid-summer.

Views of the estuary and its fishermen, the beach and the Maiden Tower appear as subjects in watercolour, illustration and oils by various artists including Austin Cooper, Alexander Williams, Nano Reid, Ithell Colquhoun and more recently Richard Moore.

An illustration drawn of the 'Mouth of the Boyne' in 1746–47 by Thomas Wright (1711–1786), which shows the Maiden Tower and Lady's Finger, appeared in his book Louthiana, published in 1748.

Two other early illustrations are "Views of Maiden-Tower near Drogheda, Co:y Meath" by Austin Cooper in 1782 and "The lady's Finger & Maiden Tower, Co. of Eastmeath" an engraving based on a sketch by George Petrie.

An alternative Dindsenchas tradition, a body of literature in verse and prose form on the origin of famous places, associates the variant name Inber Colptha with the Máta, a massive aquatic creature which occupied a once submerged plain around Dundalk, Magh Muirthemne, and which was killed and dismembered on a stone, Liacc Benn, on top of Newgrange in Brú na Bóinne, by the Dagda and parts thrown into the Boyne.

Other associations in myth include The Tragedy of the Sons of Tuireann, Togail Bruidne Dá Derga, Lebor Gabála Érenn, the lives of various saints, Acallam na Senórach, other Fenian Cycle tales and the Dindsenchas tradition.

The aetiological explanation for the Boyne itself was an out-surging of the Well of Segais on Síd Nechtain, the mythological form of Carbury Hill belonging to Nechtan, which tore apart and drowned his wife the goddess Boann,[57] in a flood of water, and in some versions her lapdog Dabilla, before sweeping out to sea[58][59] giving the generic name Inber Bóinne or Inber Bóinde[52] to the Boyne estuary.

The estuary is presented in Togail Bruidne Dá Derga as the principal maritime entry port of Ireland in the peaceful times of the legendary king Conaire Mór: 'Now there were in his reign great bounties, to wit, seven ships in every June in every year arriving at Inver Colptha, and oakmast up to the knees in every autumn, and plenty of fish in the rivers Bush and Boyne in the June of each year, and such abundance of good will that no one slew another in Erin during his reign.

The Ulaid according to historian Francis John Byrne 'possibly still ruled directly in Louth as far as the Boyne in the early seventh century'[64] a time when Congal Cáech made a bid for the kingship of Tara.

Tuath Inbir and Tráig Indbir Colpa are listed as the southern boundary points of the forest and lands of Conall Cernach, mythological hero of the Ulaid.

[65] The two districts ran north to the area of Newry,[66] were given to Conall by Cuscraid Meand Macha, King of Ulster, his foster-son, and represent later pseudo-historical claims by the Cruthin of Conaille Muirtheimne.

[68] Whatever the origin myth by historical times, in the sixth century, the tribal grouping known as Ciannachta Breg were in place between Annagassan and Dublin centering on Duleek, the stone-church of St. Cianán.

According to the Annals of Ulster they were defeated in 535 by Túathal Máelgarb at Luachair Mór eitir dá inber (... between two estuaries) a place between the Boyne and the Nanny, or Delvin River[69] now the townland of Lougher west of Duleek.

Mornington took its name from Robert le Mariner, a Norman proprietor, who also appears in Latin as Roberto Marinario bearing witness to a charter in Dublin (No.

Graham notes that in 1235, "a burgage in the vill Marenariorium, now known as Mornington ... was included in a grant of land to [the Cistercian] Beaubec Abbey [which held a monastic farm at Beymore, east Meath].

At this time the settlement contained a church, a stone tower, a mill and some messuages, an inventory which makes it clear that, despite its borough status, the vill Marenariorum was no more than a manorial village in size or function".

The rabbits burrow in a heap of sand blown off the sea-shore by the easterly winds, and feed on a salt marsh running parallel to it, being prevented from going on the uplands and corn-grounds by broad drains, which are kept constantly full of water.

They are all disposed of in Dublin market, the skin being generally more valuable than the flesh ..."[77] Despite close links and being surrounded on the landward side by the neighbouring and more extensive Manor of Colpe it remained a separate vill having its own church up to the sixteenth century with 'Marynerton' being listed amongst the Irish possessions of Furness Abbey and Llanthony at the Suppression of the Monasteries in 1536.

[78] Around this time Henry Draycott (c. 1510–1572) an English-born Crown official and judge in sixteenth-century Ireland, who held a number of senior Government offices, became a substantial landowner in the Pale, with his principal estate at Mornington.

Mornington was the scene of one of the actions in March 1642 during the raising of the Siege of Drogheda of 1641–42 as the garrison undertook raids into the locality to disrupt the Northern rebels under Sir Phelim O'Neill surrounding the town.

The Drogheda forces found the previous year's harvest still in the fields and John D'Alton in his history of Drogheda quotes Dean Nicholas Bernard how: Early on that morning [the 3rd of March] ... the forces under Colonel Wainman advanced hither, where they found the town [of Mornington] abandoned, so that their whole work that day was to reap what was left, for which all sorts were permitted to go forth for pillage; the lanes so thickened with all sorts of grain, that the spring seemed to be harvest ...

In this raid they also burned: A fair house of one Draycot (who by the rebels was newly created Viscount Mornington, for his merit in the cause) ... which was done the rather in a just revenge of his fraudulent disarming many of our soldiers as they were making hither from the bridge of Julianstown.

His library, with what could be preserved from the fire, was brought in hither and sold us at very easy rates; a very large parchment manuscript of an old missal, consecrated to that church of Mornington, came to my hands, the loss of which I presume they have valued more than their houses.

A plaque dedicated to James Brabazon, Esq., who died in 1794, which shows his links to the Earls of Meath, is found on the ivy-covered wall of the early church in the old graveyard of Mornington.