Wexford And Southeast Ireland
Greatest Hits
Wexford And Southeast Ireland
Greatest Hits
New Ross, County Wexford
This page is one in a series about sites in Wexford and Southeast Ireland that feature as field experiences for most students who participate in courses at Georgia Southern University’s Wexford Campus. As you plan your courses, whether for live or online delivery, you can be reasonably sure that your students will visit many of the sites. In general, the trips are organized and led by GS’s Wexford Campus Director, although that individual may also use the services of a local expert to enhance the students’ encounter with a given location. A typical site experience consists of: (1) a guided portion, designed to orient the students about the sites’s history and significance (as well as safety and other protocols); and (2) a free portion, intended to facilitate independent work by students, usually required to function as “buddies” in groups of two or more.
New Ross
Medieval Norman River Port
Site Of Major Battle During 1798 Rebellion
Nineteenth-Century Trade And Emigration Center
Ancestral Home Of J.F.K.
New Ross, County Wexford
Medieval Norman River Port
Site Of Major Battle During 1798 Rebellion
Nineteenth-Century Trade And Emigration Center
Ancestral Home Of J.F.K.
¶ Situated in western County Wexford (around 25 miles from GS’s Wexford Town campus), the river port of New Ross is “new” since the medieval period. It sits on the County Wexford side of the River Barrow. On the opposite bank is County Kilkenny.
¶ A road journey of 14.2 miles connects New Ross to the city of Waterford, the largest settlement in County Waterford. Currently under development is a New Ross-Waterford greenway for pedestrians and cyclists.
¶ As part of Project Ireland 2040, an infrastructure-enhancement scheme, January 2020 saw the opening of a major new crossing of the River Barrow near New Ross, designed to take heavy traffic away from the town’s historic district and better link the major port of Rosslare, south of Wexford Town, to the south-coast cities of Waterford and Cork.
¶ Named the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge, in honor of US President John F. Kennedy’s mother, the structure is the longest bridge in the Republic of Ireland. An official statement reveals that its 750-feet main spans are “the longest concrete-only extradosed box-girder bridge spans in the world.”
¶ Especially in the post-Brexit environment, study of Rosslare and its associated transportation networks enhances the international knowledge and competency of GS logistics students, from the undergraduate to the doctoral level.
¶ New Ross provides one useful case study, for it is home to the European Operations Hub of NolanTransport, a leading European road-freight carrier. Characterized by a large, advanced fleet and technology-assisted integration into European ferry systems, Nolan specializes in services between Ireland and the UK and between Ireland and continental Europe (sometimes using the UK as a “land bridge”).
Medieval Norman River Port
¶ Gaining a royal charter in 1207, New Ross was founded around 1189, near the site of St. Abbán’s sixth-century abbey. Its founders were Isabel de Clare and her husband, William Marshal, Europe’s most famous knight.
¶ Isabel was the daughter and heir of Aoife, the Gaelic (or native-Irish) princess of Leinster — Ireland’s eastern province — and Richard (“Strongbow”) de Clare, leader of the Cambro-Norman (i.e. Welsh-Norman) invasion of Ireland.
¶ The founding couple selected a strategic location overlooking the River Barrow (Ireland’s second-longest river) as it flows to the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 18 miles south.
¶ At New Ross, the Barrow is tidal and deep, the depth being caused in part by its having already been joined by another important river, the Nore, which, during the nineteenth century, supported over 30 flour and textile mills.
¶ About 27 miles northwest of New Ross, Kilkenny, the chief city on the Nore, became the Normans’ Irish capital, a scenario that benefitted New Ross.
¶ Near the ocean, the Barrow-Nore waterway joins a third river, the Suir, shortly after it passes through the city of Waterford. The combined estuary of the so-called Three Sisters river system is known as Waterford Harbor. Draining a significant portion of Ireland (around 3,555 square miles), including some of the island’s most fertile and productive farmland, the Three Sisters system offers much for students of environmental and agricultural science to study.
¶ To facilitate safe passage of ships into and out of New Ross, William Marshal constructed the Hook Lighthouse, on the County Wexford side of where Waterford Harbor enters the Atlantic. He was successful in his goal of having New Ross out-compete Waterford as a trading port. Also referred to by the Norman-French name of Rosponte (“Ross Bridge”), the town became thirteenth-century Ireland’s busiest port. The remains of its principal place of worship, St. Mary’s Church, are in good repair and explained by interpretative panels.
¶ By 1279, New Ross had gained a town wall, much of which still stands. Early in the wall-building process, a fosse (or dry moat) was dug, a job discussed by an eye-witness in a Norman-French-language poem, “Rithmus facture Ville de Ross” (translated into English under the title, “The Entrenchment of Ross” or “The Walling of Ross”). Towards its conclusion, the piece avers, “In no other isle is known \ Such a hospitable town; \ Joyfully the people greet \ Every stranger in their street. \ Free is he to sell and buy, \ And sustain no tax thereby.” The poem underscores that the wall was a citizens’ initiative, with various trade guilds contributing.
¶ The walling is the topic of the thirteenth of the 15 embroidered panels that constitute the Ros Tapestry, a “tale in thread” about the medieval history of New Ross and its environs. Each panel is around 6 feet by 4 feet in size, and the greater ensemble is open to the public year-round in an exhibit center on the quay (i.e. riverfront) in New Ross, opposite the John F. Kennedy statue.
¶ New Ross Street Focus, a community group, has produced an excellent historical tour of the town, which can be experienced with a local guide or in a self-guided fashion. In addition to other material, the tour offers compelling content about New Ross’s medieval origins and growth. Our principal contact and friend in New Ross Street Focus is Myles Courtney, a retired banker.
Image • A portion of the remains of the original St. Mary’s Church, completed in 1210 as part of the building of New Ross by the medieval power couple that was Isabel de Clare and William Marshal. On a rise overlooking the town and the River Barrow, the chancel and north and south transepts still stand; however, the nave was demolished in 1813 to make way for a new church, which operates as a Church of Ireland (Episcopalian) parish church to this day. (Image used with permission of Menapia Research & Education.)
Site Of Major Battle During 1798 Rebellion
¶ Most towns and many villages in County Wexford contain a memorial to the 1798 Rebellion. Spearheaded by the Society of the United Irishmen (an organization originating with Presbyterian merchants in Belfast) , the rebellion sought to free Ireland from British colonial control. The rebels’ ideal was a sovereign Irish republic, based on the American and French models, with equality for all, regardless of faith.
¶ The rebellion began on May 24, 1798, and County Wexford emerged as its central location. Some historians estimate that one-fifth of the county’s population perished in the conflict.
¶ Overall, the 1798 Rebellion delivered the bloodiest year in Irish history. The conflict’s bloodiest engagement was the one-day Battle of New Ross, which occurred on June 5. A credible estimate of the rebel dead, recorded on the day, was 2,806; and it may be that more than that number of rebels and civilians were killed in and around New Ross in the immediate aftermath of the battle.
¶ By means of the Battle of New Ross, the United Irish commander, Bagenal Harvey — a Protestant (Episcopalian) lawyer from County Wexford — hoped to push the rebels west into County Kilkenny, on the far bank of the River Barrow from New Ross. Fighting in the streets, mainly with pikes (as opposed to guns), the rebels managed to gain control of about two-thirds of the town; however, the British garrison received reinforcements and, thus, was able to mount a victory-securing counter-offensive.
¶ Prior to the battle, the British shot a rebel messenger, Matthew Furlong, dispatched by Harvey under a white flag. This action caused a rebel column of around 800 men to commence the attack, even though Harvey had not given a formal order. The column broke through the Three Bullet Gate, part of the town walls, led by John Kelly from the village of Killanne, County Wexford. “Tonight, we’ll man the bearna bhaoil,” a line in Ireland’s national anthem, commemorates the incident at the gate. The Gaeilge (Irish-language) phrase means “gap of danger.”
¶ In connection with the rebellion’s centenary, the Dublin-born Patrick Joseph McCall composed two ballads about events in County Wexford: “Boolavogue,” centered on John Murphy, a Roman Catholic priest who became a rebel leader; and “Kelly, the Boy from Killanne.”
¶ In 1907, a monument was unveiled in central New Ross. Designed by Edward A. Foran, it depicts a 1798 rebel (“pikeman” or “croppy boy”). Some claim the figure is John Kelly; others cite the flag to claim it is Matthew Furlong. The inscription declares that the memorial honors “our heroic ancestors who fought and fell in the Battle of New Ross.”
¶ Study of the 1798 Rebellion presents opportunities to address equity and diversity. The United Irishmen advanced a new calculus for Irish nationality, pushing away from blood-nativism to the goal articulated by the movement’s chief ideologue, the Protestant (Episcopalian) lawyer Theobald Wolfe Tone: ”to substitute the common name of Irishman in the place of the denominations of Protestant [Episcopalian], Catholic, and Dissenter.” Presbyterians constituted Ireland’s largest Dissenter coterie.
¶ Questions of trauma and commemoration also emerge from academic consideration of the 1798 Rebellion.
Image • A potion of the memorial in New Ross to the battle that raged there on June 5, 1798. Two of the event’s rebel leaders, Bagenal Harvey and John Kelly, were executed on the bridge that crosses the River Slaney in Wexford Town. The concluding stanza of P.J. McCall’s popular ballad, “Kelly, The Boy from Killanne,” recollects that outcome: “But the gold sun of freedom grew darkened at Ross \ And it set by the Slaney's red wave \ And poor Wexford stripped naked, hung high on a cross \ With her heart pierced by traitors and knaves.” (Image used with permission of Menapia Research & Education.)
Nineteenth-Century Trade And Emigration Center
¶ Our principal connection to New Ross is the Dunbrody Emigration Experience, a visitor attraction on the quay. Operated by the John F. Kennedy Trust (a community-based, non-profit organization), this high-quality facility centers on a full-scale reproduction of the Dunbrody, a barque or three-masted wooden sailing vessel.
¶ Named after a County Wexford abbey founded in 1170, the original Dunbrody was constructed in Québec, Canada, by Irish emigrant Thomas Hamilton Oliver. The commissioning purchaser, William Graves & Son, operated out of New Ross as an international merchant-shipping company. Upon taking delivery in 1845, Graves & Son dispatched the Dunbrody on its first commercial voyage. With a cargo of ballast, it exited New Ross, bound for Savannah, where it loaded up with Georgia pitch pine and white oak.
¶ As Ireland’s Great Hunger (the potato famine of 1845-1849) intensified, the Dunbrody and its sibling Graves & Son vessels reconfigured to carry emigrants across the North Atlantic — primarily to Québec and New York during the spring-summer sailing season and to Savannah during the fall-winter one. The fleet earned a reputation for attention to emigrants’ health and safety, contradicting the notion of “coffin ships” often associated with Great Hunger-related emigration.
¶ In September 2019, the Dunbrody Emigration Experience opened a new, permanent component: Savannah Landing. When visitors complete the reenactor-enhanced tour of the vessel, which sits quay-side in the River Barrow, they are exposed to major elements of the trade-and-emigration narrative that connects New Ross and Savannah.
¶ Touch-screen displays constitute just one means of the storytelling, which was developed by the Wexford-Savannah Axis research project at Georgia Southern University in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Trust, using $50,000 in project support. An Irish grant was more than doubled by contributions by Visit Savannah, the Savannah Economic Development Authority, the Savannah-Hilton Head Airport Authority, Bonitz of Georgia, Georgia Grown, and the Georgia Cotton Commission. Central to coordinating the project were Seán Connick, Director of the Dunbrody Emigration Center, and Joe Marinelli, President of Visit Savannah.
¶ In March 2020, Savannah Landing at the Dunbrody Emigration Experience received the Travelblazer Award from the Georgia Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus.
¶ November 2019 saw the John F. Kennedy Trust and other partners in Wexfordia — New Ross’s tourism-transformation project — secure almost $5.6 million in funding from the Government of Ireland’s Rural Regeneration and Development Fund. A major element of the project is the repurposing of a large premises, a former bank building, near the Dunbrody Emigration Experience, into a state-of-the-art immersive visitor center. A “Savannah Room” features in the proposal, and GS faculty members are encouraged to suggest how faculty-student research, produced in association with Wexford Campus courses, could be embedded in that space. To start a conversation, please email GS’s Center for Irish Research and Teaching: irish@georgiasouthern.edu.
¶ Another significant element of the Dunbrody Emigration Experience is the facility’s housing of the Irish America Hall of Fame. Currently, space is limited, so one section of the former bank has been earmarked for a replacement, much-expanded installation.
¶ Honoring Americans of Irish birth or descent who have made consequential contributions to the United States (whether nationally or in local communities), the Hall of Fame is overseen by New York-based Irish America, the foremost popular magazine serving America’s ethnic-Irish community, estimated at around 33 million (just over 10% of the population). The editor and co-founder of Irish America, Patricia Harty, delivered the 2016 (fifth annual) Distinguished Lecture in Irish Studies at Georgia Southern University.
¶ Spanning a range of vocations (business, technology, science, entertainment, literature, and more), the Hall of Fame constitutes an asset for Wexford Campus-based courses with a focus on migration-and-integration studies and diaspora-identity studies.
¶ The installation spotlights two Savannahians, both of Wexford descent: the Southern Gothic literary author, Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), and the physician, Brigadier General Francis P. Rossiter, Jr., MD (born 1940).
¶ Among the roster of other inductees, one finds: John O. Brennan (2018), former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Irish-born Dr. William C. Campbell (2017), recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine; and Colonel Eileen Collins (2016), the first female commander of a space shuttle mission.
Scenes from the Dunbrody Emigration Experience, New Ross, County Wexford. • Top Left: The facility’s entrance. • Top Right: A section of the deck of the full-scale reproduction of the barque Dunbrody. • Bottom Right: Ireland as it appears on the globe that encases the Irish Emigrant Flame. • Bottom Left: The steerage quarters on the replica of the Dunbrody. (Image collage used with permission of Menapia Research & Education.)
¶ Over the years, the Dunbrody Emigration Experience has graciously and generously hosted groups of Georgia Southern students to present research to audiences that have exceeded 100 people. Typically, the facility uses its restaurant space for these events, providing AV technology and heavy hors d’oeuvres. Please bear the venue in mind should this kind of opportunity fit your course goals.
¶ The facility’s outdoor plaza contains the Irish Emigrant Flame, lit in 2013 from the eternal flame at the tomb of President John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. That year marked the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred four months after a multi-day state visit to Ireland that included speeches in New Ross and Wexford Town.
¶ In 2016, GS’s Wexford-Savannah Axis research project cooperated with Wexford County Council and the Dunbrody Emigration Experience to facilitate a County Wexford visit by the Savannah Children’s Choir, then celebrating ten years of service to diverse communities across Savannah. The kick-off event occurred on the plaza at the Dunbrody Emigrant Experience, beside the Irish Emigrant Flame.
Ancestral Home Of J.F.K.
¶ John F. Kennedy served as the thirty-fifth — and the first Catholic — President of the United States. All of his great-grandparents were born in Ireland, with one great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, originating in Dunganstown, a rural townland (district) bordering the River Barrow less than five miles south of New Ross.
¶ In common with the majority of Irish, the Kennedys were tenant farmers in 1848, during the Great Hunger, when Patrick, the family’s third son, emigrated from New Ross, via Liverpool, to Boston, where he became a cooper (barrel-maker). In Boston, he married another County Wexford native: Bridget Murphy from the civil parish of Owenduff, also in the New Ross area.
¶ Under subsequent land-reform legislation, the Kennedy family was able to purchase the Dunganstown farm (from the Tottenham landed estate), and the property remains in its possession as a working concern. Between the passage of Ireland’s first and last major land-reform acts (in 1870 and 1909, respectively), ownership of 11.5 million of the island’s 20 million acres shifted from landlords to tenants. The most important of these initiatives — the so called Wyndham Land Purchase Act — became law in 1903.
¶ This large-scale land-transfer constitutes one of the most revolutionary developments in Irish history, although narratives of physical-force nationalism — such as the Easter 1916 Rising and the War of Independence (1919-1921) — often receive more attention. Ireland is fairly unusual in the fact that it overturned its centuries-old colonial land dispensation in favor of native farmers prior to achieving political independence.
Left: President John F. Kennedy at a tea party in the farmyard of the Kennedy Homestead in Dunganstown, County Wexford, on June 27, 1963, less than five months before his assassination. Immediately to Kennedy’s right is a relative, Mary Ryan, host on the occasion. Right: An inscribed silver goblet, presented to Kennedy by the citizens of New Ross. (Images used with permission of he Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.)
¶ On June 27, 1963 — the second full day of his four-day state visit to Ireland (which followed his visit to Berlin) — President Kennedy privileged County Wexford. He deemed the county ancestral ground. In addition to delivering a speech in Redmond Square, Wexford Town (around two-tenths of a mile from GS’s Wexford Campus), he also laid a wreath at the town’s statue of County Wexford native Commodore John Barry, celebrated as the “father of the United States Navy,” of which Kennedy was a veteran.
¶ Next, Kennedy traveled to New Ross, where he offered another speech, again outdoors. A banner, hung prominently on a quayside building, declared, “Welcome Home, Mr. President.” In those remarks, Kennedy reflected, “When my great grandfather left here … he carried nothing with him except two things: a strong religious faith; and a strong desire for liberty. I am glad to say that all of his great-grandchildren have valued that inheritance.”
¶ The day had begun with a tea party in the farmyard of the Kennedy Homestead in Dunganstown, where the President and two of his sisters (Eunice Shriver and. Jean Smith) were hosted by their closest Irish relative, Mary Ryan. The cup and saucer used by Kennedy are among the artifacts displayed in the Visitor Center, a feature at Dunganstown since 2013.
¶ In addition to the Dunganstown tea party, another element of Kennedy’s Irish visit became iconic. As the first foreign head of state to honor the rebels of the Easter 1916 Rising at Dublin’s Arbor Hill Cemetery, Kennedy witnessed a a group of Irish Army cadets perform a drill, a film of which he would regularly re-watch. At his widow’s request, 26 members of the next class of cadets enacted the drill graveside at Kennedy’s funeral, the only occasion when non-US troops have rendered honors at the laying to rest of an American president.
¶ Our visits to the Kennedy Homestead generally also include the nearby Kennedy Arboretum, the principal means whereby the people of Ireland acknowledged the assassinated President’s memory. Spanning 623 acres on Slieve Coillte, a mountain with panoramic views of County Wexford, the facility showcases an internationally renowned collection of 4,500 types of trees and shrubs, planted in a botanical sequence and representing all of earth’s temperate regions.
¶ The arboretum’s 200 forest plots are grouped by continent, rendering it an asset for teaching plant and ecosystem biology.
¶ Faculty members in political science, history, international studies, and other disciplines may be interested in the pedagogical and research potential of the relationship that GS’s Wexford Campus enjoys with the New Ross-based Kennedy Summer School, held since 2013 over a weekend in early September.
¶ Utilizing venues across New Ross, but principally St. Michael’s Theater, this public gathering of thought-leaders characterizes itself as “a festival of Irish-American history, culture, and politics.”
¶ Speakers and panelists at the 2019 iteration of the Summer School included (but were by no means limited to): Dr. Leo Varakar, Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland); Micheál Martin, Leader of Finna Fáil (one of Ireland’s principal political parties); Bruce Morrison, former US Congressman (Democrat of Connecticut); and Maureen Dowd, New York Times political columnist.
¶ It is straightforward to integrate into the Kennedy Summer School students in courses occurring in September at GS’s Wexford Campus.