Newry

Newry, town, Newry, Mourne and Down district, southeastern Northern Ireland. It lies along the River Clanrye and Newry Canal, near Carlingford Lough (inlet of the sea) and the Mourne Mountains. The town developed around a Cistercian abbey founded on the Clanrye by St. Malachy about 1144 and was granted a charter in 1157. The Irish name of the town, Iubhar Cinn Trágha, means “the yew tree at the head of the Strand,” and it is alleged that the original yew, the symbol of immortality, was planted by St. Patrick. Because of its position in a gap of the hills, Newry was often attacked from the 13th to the 17th century; it was burned by the English king James II’s forces in 1689. St. Patrick’s Church, founded in Newry in 1578, was the first Protestant church to be built in Ireland. Newry is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Dromore, and the Cathedral of Saints Patrick and Colman was completed in 1829. With the opening of the Newry Canal in 1742, the town became a major trading centre. Pop. (2001) 27,300; (2011) 26,893.