The County of Louth has been settled from earliest times. The visible remains of these early settlements are various burial tombs, ranging in size from the massive passage graves of the Boynes Valley to the smaller Court Cairins and Dolmens of the Dundalk/Carlingford area.

The subsequent bronze and iron ages have also left their marks on the landscape where, despite the intensive agriculture practiced throughout the centuries, many Bronze Age burials, iron age raths, forts and souterrains still remain in the surrounding countryside.

The County takes its name from Lugh, the great pagan god of the ancient Celts; a place name found elsewhere in Europe such as Lyons Loudon in France; Leiden in Holland and Liegnitz in Silesia.

Until the early twelfth century the area was divided between a number of ancient Irish kingdoms which became absorbed into the O'Cartoll kingdom of the Oirghialla or Oriel, which had its capital seat at Louth village six miles south west of Dundalk.

Here the remains of a monastic foundation established by O'Cartoll himself can still be seen. However it was the coming of the Anglo-Normans in the late twelfth century that was to determine the destiny of the county for the next five hundred years and to leave it with an enduring heritage down to our own time; that of the old Irish in the surnames of the people, its place names and sites of historical and archeological interest.

Until it was shired as the county of Louth in 1233 it was known as Uriel (modern Oriell) an anglicization of the word Oirghialla possibly in anticipation of further conquests of the kingdom to the west in the present day counties of Monaghan and Arinagh. That this was not to be was due to the resistance put up by the native Irish of the counties from the 13th. to the 16th centuries.

The resurgent Irish put great pressure on the Anglo-Norman colony throughout the ages, causing the county to be divided into two distinct parts - the pale from the word paling or fence; east of a line from the town of Dundalk to Ardee and thence to the Meath border, and the march or the borderlands to the west. In this period the county was a coastal finger of land held by the Anglo-Norman lordships of Mangenis and McCartan of Down, the Murphys of Armagh and the McMahons, O'Carrolls and McKennas of Monaghan held sway.