Greater Drogheda: Emerging Demographic Evidence Base for Ireland’s Sixth City.

With Ireland’s strong economic recovery and the gradual revival of its construction industry, the future potential status and growth of its provincial cities in general for Drogheda, and the near 80,000 population of the Greater Drogheda Area (GDrA), is viewed as having been portrayed in an underwhelming way in the withdrawn National Spatial Strategy (NSS). Drogheda straddles both Louth and Meath counties, thereby presenting historic governance issues. Its impressive growth since 1996, in becoming Ireland’s largest town, has required several county boundary adjustments. This divided governance has inhibited its commercial growth. The purpose of this Paper is to have GDrA’s status and its future as Ireland’s next city, appropriately articulated in the revised National Planning Framework (NPF), supported by the demographic evidence-base of this Paper.