a political ally of the Lord Deputy, Anthony St. Leger and acquired many former church properties in the Dissolution. His descendants quickly integrated within the Old English community of the Pale and remained one of the significant families in the area for the next 150 years. By 1603 Mornington was being considered part of the Civil Parish of Colpe. It appears as part of Colpe in the Civil Survey of 1654 and in Samuel Lewis's "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland" (1837) under Colpe, or Colpe-cum-Mornington. Mornington was the scene of one of the actions in March 1642 during the raising of the Siege of Drogheda of 1641–42 as the garrison undertook raids into the locality to disrupt the Northern rebels under Sir Phelim O'Neill surrounding the town. The castle at Colpe, in Mornington townland, was captured by Lord Moore of Mellifont with part of the relief force from Dublin in this action. The Drogheda forces found the previous year's harvest still in the fields and John D'Alton in his history of Drogheda quotes Dean Nicholas Bernard how: The town of Drogheda then with great joy set to brewing the captured grain for beer "having drunk nothing but water for a week". In this raid they also burned: This missal and another book called the Black Book of Llanthony, both now lost, had previously belonged to the library of Henry Draycott. The destroyed house is recorded in 1640 as the property of John Draycott of Mornanstowne and Valeran Weisley of Dingen, along with 308 Irish acres. Its ruins located on Church Road, were recorded as a large, irregularly-shaped building described in gothic lettering as a 'Ruin' on the 1836 ed. of the Ordnance Survey 6" map. It was believed locally to have been the site of a former monastery. The Ozanam Home now sits on the site of 'Mornington House', Coney Hall, latterly the principal residence in the area and owned by the Brabazon family. A plaque dedicated to James Brabazon, Esq., who died in 1794, which shows his links to the Earls of Meath, is found on the ivy-covered wall of the early church in the old graveyard of Mornington. The family's association went back to their seventeenth-century ancestor, a Captain James Brabazon who was wounded at the Battle of Aughrim on the Williamite side. Another significant family in the area were the Weslies, later Earls of Mornington. Title of "Earl