w York Times reported the burning of the barracks and the subsequent looting
and burning of the town and follow up operations by the local IRA. In
later years the Lalors who moved to the house across the road from the old
Brothers school had a collection of memorabilia from those years including,
letters from Collins sent from Frongoch (they kept the originals and forward
duplicates to HQ), Devs slippers and a Tricolour made by Constance Markievic
(with her name embroidered) that was to fly over the GPO during the Rising.
Their whereabouts now are unknown but photographs of their existence are on
file in Navan library. While other parts of Meath were particularly quiet
during the War Of Independence, the men from South Meath took the war to the
British; one ambush by one of the Lalor bros took place at the Wellington
Monument, where he single-handedly took on a truckload of British with his
rifle and grenade, the monument to the British PM still stands.
A new bridge was built on the Boyne in the 1980s
to divert heavy traffic from the town. This was then enhanced by the
construction, in a series of stages, of an inner relief road, which now makes
it possible for heavy traffic to achieve a complete by-pass of the town. The
Watergate bridge was replaced in 2005. The local town council purchased a field
beside the new bridge in 2004, as it was expected to be of archaeological
significance.
As
part of the Civil Service decentralization plan
