County Wexford Guide (Loch Garman)
“The Model County” - in the province of Leinster. County town: Wexford.
Sunny south-east - sandy beaches, Viking roots and the 1798 Rebellion.
The sunny south-east corner, Wexford enjoys some of Ireland’s best weather and finest beaches. It has deep Viking and Norman roots, a proud place in the 1798 Rebellion, and a celebrated opera festival. With its strawberry fields, working lighthouses and long sandy strands, it’s a favourite for Irish summer holidays.
History has a habit of arriving in Wexford by sea. The Vikings founded the county town as Waesfjord in the ninth century, and in 1169 the Normans made their first Irish landfall on the county's southern shore at Bannow Bay, changing the course of the island's story. In 1798 Wexford rose more fiercely than anywhere else in Ireland, and the pikemen of Boolavogue, the battle of Vinegar Hill and the short-lived Wexford Republic remain woven into the county's identity and its ballads. In the medieval baronies of Forth and Bargy, settlers' descendants spoke Yola, a unique dialect descended from Middle English, into the nineteenth century.
Known as the Model County for its progressive farming, Wexford enjoys more sunshine than most of Ireland, which is why its strawberries and early potatoes are famous nationwide. The fertile land rolls from the Blackstairs Mountains to long sandy beaches at Curracloe and Rosslare, where the Europort connects Ireland to Wales and France. Wexford town stages an internationally renowned opera festival each autumn, while New Ross tells the emigration story through the Dunbrody famine ship and the Kennedy Homestead at Dunganstown, the farm from which John F. Kennedy's great-grandfather set out in 1848.
Cities, towns and villages in Wexford
- Wexford - The Viking-founded county town, famous worldwide for its annual festival of rarely performed operas.
- Enniscorthy - A Norman castle town on the Slaney beneath Vinegar Hill, epicentre of the 1798 Rebellion.
- New Ross - A medieval port on the Barrow, home to the Dunbrody famine ship and gateway to the Kennedy ancestral homestead.
- Gorey - A thriving market town in north Wexford, a popular base for the beaches at Courtown and Ballymoney.
- Rosslare Harbour - Ireland's ferry gateway to Wales and continental Europe, beside the sunny resort of Rosslare Strand.
- Ferns - The ancient capital of Leinster and seat of Diarmait Mac Murchada, with a fine ruined castle and abbey.
- Bunclody - A handsome tree-lined town at the foot of Mount Leinster on the Carlow border.
- Kilmore Quay - A thatched-cottage fishing village and the departure point for the Saltee Islands bird sanctuaries.
- Duncannon - A beach village on the Hook Peninsula dominated by a star-shaped fort built against the Spanish Armada.
Famous people from Wexford
- Commodore John Barry - Born at Ballysampson near Tacumshane, he became a hero of the American Revolution and is honoured as a father of the US Navy.
- Eileen Gray - Pioneering modernist designer and architect, born near Enniscorthy in 1878, whose furniture now sells for record sums.
- Colm Toibin - Enniscorthy-born novelist whose book Brooklyn, set partly in his home town, became an Oscar-nominated film.
- John Banville - Wexford town native and Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea.
- Diarmait Mac Murchada - The King of Leinster, seated at Ferns, whose appeal for help brought the Normans to Ireland in 1169.
- Nicky Rackard - Legendary Rathnure hurler who led Wexford to All-Ireland glory in the 1950s and has a statue in Wexford town.
- Jim Bolger - Champion racehorse trainer born at Oylegate, who mentored both Aidan O'Brien and Tony McCoy.
- Anne Doyle - One of RTE's best-loved newsreaders, a native of Ferns.
- Kevin Doyle - Republic of Ireland striker from Adamstown who starred in the Premier League for Reading and Wolves.
- Billy Roche - Wexford town playwright whose Wexford Trilogy brought the town's life to the London stage.
Did you know?
- Hook Lighthouse on the Hook Peninsula has guided ships for some 800 years, making it one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the world.
- Wexford takes its name from the Norse Waesfjord, meaning inlet of the mudflats.
- Yola, a distinct language descended from Middle English, was spoken in the baronies of Forth and Bargy until the nineteenth century.
- During the 1798 Rebellion, Wexford insurgents briefly declared an independent Wexford Republic before defeat at Vinegar Hill.
- John F. Kennedy's great-grandfather Patrick emigrated from Dunganstown near New Ross in 1848, and JFK returned to the family farm as US president in June 1963.
- Wexford Festival Opera, founded in 1951, built a global reputation by staging rare and forgotten operas.
- In 1943 businessman Michael Neale bought the Saltee Islands and declared himself Prince Michael the First of the Saltees, erecting a throne that still stands there.
- The Normans made their first landing in Ireland in 1169 at Bannow Bay on the south Wexford coast.
Places to visit in Wexford
- Hook Lighthouse - One of the world’s oldest working lighthouses, 800+ years old.
Surnames from Wexford: Murphy · Doyle · Kavanagh · Cullen · Roche · Keating · Redmond · Larkin · Kinsella · Doran · Hayden · Kehoe