I was born and bred in Duleek Gate. It's an older part of the town and locals use the old medieval name of "Dooley Gate". I grew up in a town full of employment. Every day double-decker buses carried workers from the mills and shoe factories home for their lunch at ten past one and took them back at a quarter past two. There were seven or eight buses going to each side of town in the 1960s.

Then we moved to the 1970s and cheap imports closed the mills and shoe factories. Since the late 1980s we are climbing back. Unemployment is down now to 25,000 - a drop of 1,700 over the last two years. We urgently need new industries in the town. They are coming to the wider region, but the town has been bypassed by technology industries.

Coming from the far side is part of Drogheda culture. No matter where you live, you're from the far side. The river running through the town carried for me all the mysticism and mystery that came with the stories of Cuchulain being conceived here and Fionn MacCumhail finding the tree of knowledge at the Boyne. Then there's the great megalithic sites of Knowth and Dowth and Newgrange and the site of the Battle of the Boyne.

Once the bright evenings come, people walk the three miles to Bettystown beach. We used to go by train to Laytown for sixpence and brought sandwiches. We went to Butlins holiday camp down the road which is now owned by Phelim McCloskey. His dad was from Dooley Gate.

We were always very proud of the Medical Missionaries in the town who ran Our Lady's Hospital. I felt it was our own. The Franciscans who have been here since 1200 are sadly leaving the town and we're negotiating to find a suitable use for the church.

I'm still living on the far side, on Rathmullan Road. The Battle of the Boyne is my favourite thing in history - now I can look out of my front window at the Boyne. T K Whitttaker once said there was no better place to grow up than Drogheda and he was right.