Arklow

ARKLOW, a seaport and market town of Co. Wicklow, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, 49 m. S. of Dublin, by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 4944. Seafisheries are prosecuted, and there are oyster-beds on the coast, but the produce requires to be freed from a peculiar flavour by the purer waters of the Welsh and English coast before it is fit for food. The produce of the copper and lead mines of the Vale of Avoca is shipped from the port. There are cordite and explosives works, established by Messrs Kynoch of Birmingham, England. In 1882 an act was passed providing for the improvement of the harbour and for the appointment of harbour commissioners. The town hall and the Protestant church (1899) were gifts of the earl of Carysfort, in whose property the town is situated. There are slight ruins of an ancient castle of the Ormondes, demolished in 1649 by Cromwell. On the 9th of June 1 798 the Irish insurgents, attacking the town, were defeated by the royal troops near Arklow Bridge, and their leader, Father Michael Murphy, was killed.