During the 19th century, the upland farm and meadows of Lakefield were run by Thomas Switzer who lived at nearby Edmondsbury. His ancestors were Protestant farmers from the German Palatinate where they excelled at making wine; they fled religious persecution and settled in Ireland in the early 1700s. One of Lakefield’s owners was Dr Joseph Mansergh Palmer, resident surgeon of Armagh from 1876 until his death in 1924. He was in charge of the Infirmary at the time of the Armagh Railway Disaster in 1889, in which 80 people were killed in a dreadful train crash. Dr Palmer’s three sons were all decorated heroes of the Great War.

In 2016 eight-year-old Emily Duggan of Lakefield was honoured at the Irish Safety National Awards for saving her brother Justin when he fell into a disused septic tank. She held out a hurl for him to grab and brought him to safety.

EDWARD HARPUR
BANNOW ISLAND, CO. WEXFORD

The isthmus on which the Harpur farm stands is thought by some to have been named for Banba, a legendary goddess who was apparently the first person to set foot in Ireland before the Great Flood. It’s a fitting location as Bannow is certainly where the vanguard of the Cambro-Norman army stayed before they embarked on the conquest of Ireland in the late 12th century. The initial force at Bannow consisted of just 30 knights, 60 men-at-arms and 300 archers under the command of Robert Fitz-Stephen, a son of the Welsh Princess Nesta.

Bannow was known as ‘Baannough’ in the now extinct Yola dialect used by the Norman families throughout the Forth and Bargy up until the 19th century. The Norman’s legacy survives in the 13th century Romanesque church of St Mary but the town of Bannow, which included nine streets, disappeared beneath the sands in the 16th century when silt in Bannow Bay swept over the island. The chimney of the town hall was still visible at low tide in the early 1800s but the area is now better known as an internationally recognised world wetland site, where migratory birds flock to the salt marsh and mud-flats.

JOHN N COUSINS
BALLYHARTY, CO. WEXFORD

In 1666, Ballyharty was granted to the Rowe family from England by Charles II; Rowe Street in Wexford Town is named for the same family. Among those to live at Ballyharty House was Richard Rowe who lost a significant chunk of his property when the Court of Exchequer found against him in 1805; he had waited 36 years to hear their judgment! Ebenezer Radford Rowe of Ballyharty was a brother-in-law of Cornelius Grogan, MP for Enniscorthy, who was executed for treason on Wexford Bridge. Shortly after Ebenezer’s death in 1820, his widow Elizabeth married Samuel Green, a young lieutenant in the 22nd Foot. He threw himself into running the farm and, in 1833, he reaped three acres of White Dantzic oats. According to the Wexford Independent, this was ‘the finest grain we have ever seen, which is mainly attributable to the superior system of husbandry pursued by this gentleman.’

ALAN JACKSON
WINGFIELD, CO. TIPPERARY

Wingfield is in the townland of Skehannagh, or An Sceachánach, meaning ‘the place of hawthorns bushes’. The house belonged to John Shortt in the mid-8th century. His widow Frances married Jonathan Doolan in 1768 and their son Thomas had it from at least 1814. At the height of the Great Famine, Thomas Doolan was one of the coroner’s jurors at the trial of Dr Charles Langley who stood accused of murdering his wife by subjecting her to utter mistreatment – a reduced diet, the confiscation of her clothes, expelling her into cholera-riddled lodgings. The jury found the doctor guilty as charged, as relayed in Andrew Tierney’s 2017 book, ‘The Doctor’s Wife Is Dead.’

JOHN P SOMERS
MONROE, CO. WEXFORD

Monroe, or An Mhóin Rua, means the red bog but the land has been fertile for a long time. In 1915, for instance, John Somers of Glenbrien was one of the principal prize-winners for his shorthorn cattle at the Co. Wexford United Agricultural Society. In 1964 Glenbrien schoolmaster Joe McManus turned on his new television set and was stunned to see a Mass on screen which was being televised live from Rome; newspapers put it down to “freak television.”

JOHN ROWE
HILLTOWN, CO. WEXFORD

The Rowe family have been at Hilltown (or Baile an Chnoic) since at least 1866. It seems likely they bought the land from the barrister Francis Charles Armstrong. The posthumous son of a Peninsula War veteran, Armstrong became something of a household name in the early 1880s when he pursued a court case against his young nephew Philip James May, an Oxford student, who arrived with his wife at the Armstrong’s house, and promptly eloped to America, via Paris, with the barrister’s 16-year-old stepdaughter. May was duly found guilty of ‘seduction’ and Armstrong was awarded £250. This terrain is hunted by the Killinick Harriers, which has strong ties with the Genesee Valley Hunt in upstate New York.

PETER KEHOE
HEATHPARK, CO. WEXFORD

During the 18th century, Heathpark (Páirc an Fhraoigh) belonged to the Whitneys of Merton, of which family Thomas Whitney was killed in action near Enniscorthy in 1798 and John Whitney served as a lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry at the battle of Waterloo. In the 1870s it appears to have belonged to Sir Benjamin Whitney, legal adviser to the Earls of Lucan, who was knighted in 1897.

There is a 5000-year-old dolmen or Druid’s Altar at nearby Collopswell but it has sadly fallen asunder. Newbawn, or ‘An Bábhun Nua’, refers to a new (‘nua’) walled enclosure (‘bábhun’), originally built by the Devereux family in the wake of the Cambro-Norman conquest. In 1669, Newbawn formed part of the ‘Manor of Colpe’ granted to Robert Leigh of Rosegarland, Co. Wexford.

In 2012, Peter Kehoe and David O’Dwyer co-hosted the National Ploughing Championships at Heathpark for over 180,000 people.

WILLIAM & PAT DOYLE
COOLADINE, CO. WEXFORD

The lands at Cooladine near Drumgoold were farmed for several generations by the Quaker family of Chamberlain. Their stone-walled meeting house in Cooladine, since demolished, was built in about 1700 and later included a stable block, a horse paddock. The Quakers, or Society of Friends, also had a burial ground at Cooladine, which began in 1799 when Eliza Chamberlain, a noted diarist, leased a plot of ‘one rood and 20 perches in extent.’ Over one hundred burials have taken place there since 1811 for Quaker families such as Thompson, Bobeare, Webb, McQuillan and Martin.

THOMAS KEHOE
BALLYWILLIAM, CO. WEXFORD

High amid the gorse-speckled countryside of northeast Wexford, the Kehoe farm is located on the Ordovician rocks that form part of the once massive estate of the Carew family of Castleboro House. Castleboro House, now a ruin, was built in 1770 by Robert Shapland Carew, the descendant of an Anglo-Saxon family from Devonshire. The forests of Forestwood (An Fhoraois) and nearby Ballywilliam (or Baile Liam, meaning ‘Liam’s settlement’) were planted by the Carews.

The farm lies just east of Ballinvegga, the site of a fierce battle during the Confederate Wars of 1643, in which a vastly outnumbered English army commanded by the Earl of Ormond inflicted a surprise defeat on General Preston’s Irish Confederate army, with the aid of six canons that, as Ormonde charmingly put it, left “what Godlie men and horses lay there all torn, and their gutts lying on the ground, armes cast away and strewed over the fields.”

TODDY McCARTHY
GRANGE, CO. WEXFORD

The McCarthy farm is located next to one of the oldest graveyards in Ireland wherein can be seen a fabulously preserved marble monument, erected in the mid-17th century, in memory of Sir Walter Whitty, of Ballyteige Castle, complete with the Whitty coat of arms.

A lion depicted on the arms inspired the legend that Sir Walter was killed by a cat in vengeance for the seduction and drowning of a beautiful woman; the cat was apparently the woman’s mother, a dexterous witch, in disguise. Also recalled here are the Devereux family of Balmagyr Castle, whose offspring included Walter Devereux who, in 1634, assassinated Albrecht Wallenstein, supreme commander of the Hapsburg armies in Europe.

THOMAS CLEARY
GARRYDUFF, CAMPILE, CO. WEXFORD

Garryduff, or ‘An Garraí Dubh’, appears to mean ‘dark garden’ or ‘black court’. A hint of the old-world can be found in a large triple-basin Bullaun Stone; local lore holds that the rainwater collected in these hollows has magical healing properties.

The Goodisson family was at Garryduff from at least the early 18th century to 1875, by which time several of them had relocated to Australia. Samuel Goodisson of Garryduff was immortalised in Mark Chartres’ poem ‘Vinegar Hill’ (1803) as a victim of ‘the false hand of friendship’s smooth disguise.’ Samuel apparently went to shake the hand of a neighbour, only for the neighbour to run him through with a blade.

Kathleen Hurley (27) from Garryduff was one of three women killed when a German Heinkel bombed the Campile creamery in broad daylight at the height of the Battle of Britain in 1940.

TED CALDBECK
JENKINSTOWN, CO. KILKENNY

George ‘Punch’ Bryan of Jenkinstown narrowly avoided being guillotined during the French Revolution and married Maria-Louisa, Comtesse de Rutaut, a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. (His wife’s sister was guillotined). Punch was a prominent supporter of Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Emancipation campaign and, in 1830, he became the first Catholic to serve as high sheriff of Kilkenny since 1690. He also established a racecourse and grandstand at Jenkinstown. Punch’s grandson George Leopold-Bryan was a godson of the king of the Belgians and married a daughter of George IV’s mistress, Lady Conyngham.

The poet Tom Moore – a friend of Byron and Shelley – wrote ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ while staying at Jenkinstown House in 1805. The old house is gone but remnants of the Victorian parkland survive, including rare Chinese Necklace Poplars.

W. L. O’HANLON
ROCHESTOWN, CO WEXFORD

Located just west of the River Owenduff, the townland of Rochestown is thought to be named for Adam Roche, the scion of the Anglo-Norman family of de la Roche. He held two carucates at Trilloc on the manor of Old Ross in 1307; a carucate was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. A moated site, visible today, probably represents Adam Roche’s farmstead and it is thought that Trilloc became Rochestown.

M & J BROWNE
BROOMLANDS CO. WEXFORD

The Browne farm lies in a lee of the River Urrin, just north of Monart Spa and south of Castle Ellis Church. The Browne family home at Broomlands is a fine two-storey 18th century farmhouse.

In 1855, Broomlands was hailed as ‘a highly productive and beautifully situated farm’ by the Dublin Daily Express. A recent family member was John Browne (d. 2005), who served as a radio officer with the Merchant Navy for seven years and went on to explore the jungles of South America, as well as extensive travels in the Sahara, Egypt, China and India.

JOHN CROWLEY
TINNASHRULE, FERNS, CO. WEXFORD

The name Tinashrule, or Tinnashrule, probably derives from the crossroads (‘shrule’) by the holly trees (‘tinna’) although locals hold that it simply meant ‘the house by the stream’. A monument overlooking the Crowley farm recalls the battle of Kilthomas Hill. This was the first battle fought in Wexford during the 1798 Rebellion. John Crowley’s uncle, George Crowley, served as a gunner with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War; the 20-year-old was killed, alongside his pilot, when their Hawker Henley airplane hit a gun embankment and crashed into the sea during a training flight at Anglesea Island in Wales in 1942.

PETER CUMMINS
BALLYKELLY, CO. WEXFORD

The farm at Ballykelly lies some 3km east of the River Barrow, close to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Arboretum, in the townland of Ballykelly (Baile Uí Cheallaigh). Anthony Forristal of Ballykelly was a well-known baker in Wexford during the Victorian age; his nephew Walter Forristal was his heir and he also left money to many charities, as well as to paint the chapel in Ballykelly and install a new railing.

M & T CODD
KILIIANE, CO. WEXFORD

The Codd farm at Orristown (Baile Órthaí) is just south of Killiane Castle, which is thought to have been one of the £10 castles built in Henry VIII’s reign although there are indications that it may be as old as 1470. The tower was later extended into a manor house in the 17th century.

The pro-Catholic Cheevers family owned Killiane from the 1540s until the Cromwellian Plantations when it was confiscated and granted to Colonel John Bunbury, an officer in Cromwell’s army in 1656 in lieu of pay. This estate was later taken over by the Harveys while Orritsown was farmed by the Sinnott family, notably the Sinnott family historian Walter Sinnott (1830-1913).

LESLIE HENDY
THE COUNTY HOUSE, CO. KILDARE

The Hendy family have been a prominent farming family in County House since at least the early 19th century. Their farm lies just off the old avenue to the new demolished Belan House, once among the largest houses in Ireland and home to the earls of Aldborough. The fourth earl blew the fortune gambling; he mortgaged Belan House, and allowed it to fall into disrepair. All that now remains are the roofless stables and some scattered follies – a domed temple and some obelisks. The Hendy home is just 600 metres from the celebrated Moone High Cross, one of the world’s best-preserved examples of these beautifully carved early medieval sculptures.

GERARD KELLY
WILKINSTOWN, CO. WEXFORD

During the 1830s and 1840s, a popular steeplechase was run at Wilkinstown. At the time, Wikinstown was home to the charismatic Thomas Sheean, who notified readers of the Wexford Independent in 1841 that he had an excellent track record in ‘administering the most efficacious prescriptions and remedies to those who applied to him to cure the following diseases, viz., Cancers, Evils, and other Infirmities.’

A small motte at Wilkinstown is thought to have been abandoned in favour of an adjacent moated site. There is also a natural spring at Lady’s Well, while a rectangular granite font and graveyard are all that survive of the ancient church of Whitechurchglynn.

COOLAMURRAY FARMS
ENNISCORTHY, CO. WEXFORD

Coolamurray (Cúil Uí Mhuirithe) is thought to mean Murray’s Corner (or nook). In 1648 Coolmurry was the site of a fight during the Confederate Wars, in which Sir Thomas Esmonde, a favourite of Charles I, led an inconclusive cavalry charge.

In 1915 George Franklin, a farmer from Coolmurry [sic], passed away at the astonishing age of 110. Mr Franklin, who would have been a ten-year-old boy when Napoleon lost at Waterloo, was ‘scarcely ever a day sick’ and ‘a familiar figure at the markets in Enniscorthy’ until a few years before his death.

Coolamurry Stud is home to the Aga Khan’s stallion Ashkalani. It is also where the late Moscow Flyer was prepared for the 1998 Derby Sale; he went on to become one of the best-loved icons of the Cheltenham Racing Festival.

JOHN MALLICK
GARRYHOE, CO. WEXFORD

A hundred years ago, one of the most celebrated racehorses in Ireland was John Mallick’s much admired filly Garryhoe. Perhaps Mr Mallick was hoping to emulate the success of his neighbour Earl Fitzwilliam whose greyhound, also called Garryhoe, won top prize at the Royal Dublin Society’s Dog Show in 1896. In any event, having already won the coveted 100 sovereign Howth Plate at Baldoyle, the horse went to Epsom Downs in 1912 to contest the Egmont Plate. She was beaten into second place but still won a useful 15 sovereigns and she went on to further acclaim at Ascot the following year.

Among those who would have followed Garryhoe’s success was Garryhoe resident Patrick Byrne, a private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who was killed at the Somme in the autumn of 1916. Garryhoe takes its name from the Irish, Gharraí Mhic Eochú, meaning ‘the son of Eochu’s garden’ and it is notable that there is a Bronze Age ringfort on the Mallicks organic farm, which occupies the high slopes above Tinahely, close to the Wicklow Way.

TUBRITT AGRI LTD
SALTMILLS, CO. WEXFORD

Tintern Abbey was founded for Cistercian monks in 1203 by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey later passed to Anthony Colclough whose descendant, the memorably named Caesar Colclough demolished the old village at Tintern in 1814 to establish the present village of Saltmills which, by 1831, contained 29 houses and cottages, ‘all neatly white-washed, and several of them painted and ornamented in front with small gardens.’

Caesar Colclough went to France in 1792. In 1804 his brother John persuaded him to come home to stand for election but, as he prepared to depart France, he was arrested on Napoleon’s orders. He remained a prisoner until 1814. His brother John stood for election in his place and was shot dead in a duel by the opposing candidate.

HENRY YEATS
COOLAGH HOUSE, CO. KILDARE

In the 19th century, Coolagh was farmed by Joseph Stronge, an industrious farmer. Other families associated with Coolagh include Carter and Boland, of whom Fr Joseph Boland was parish priest of Rosenallis from 1941-1949. Coolagh Bog formed part of the estate of the Aylmer estate purchased by the Land Commission in the 1920s; it is now home to the annual Muck Savage Challenge.

PAT BOOTH
KILLONE, CO. LAOIS

A Bronze Age trackway once powered beneath the conical hill of Killone on its way to the nearby Magh Rechet, or Great Heath. The track, later used by Celtic charioteers, was part of the ‘Slige Dala Meic Umhoir’, an ancient road network that led out from the Hill of Tara. Tradition holds that a cave on the north side of Killone Hill connects to an underground passage leading to old Killone House.

In the 1650s it was bought by Daniel Byrne, a clothier and tailor who is said to have employed forty tailors to make the uniforms for Oliver Cromwell’s 40,000-strong army. He bought a huge quantity of white cloth in Dublin and dyed it red. His trick was that he did not submit an invoice until every uniform was finished; when the cash arrived from Cromwell’s Treasury, he purchased his vast estate. Killone was sold to the Marquess of Lansdowne, Prime Minister of Britain in 1782–83 (coinciding with the end of the American War of Independence). Joseph Dunne, who leased Killone in the Victorian Age, served in the French army and was said to be one of the largest and tallest men in Europe.

MARTIN FOLEY
BALLYHACK, CO. WEXFORD

Ballyhack derives its name from ‘Baile Hac’ in Irish. One intriguing interpretation of it is that it means Hackett’s Homestead, a possible reference to a Norman knight, Sir Hackett de Riddlesford. His father Sir Walter de Riddlesford was first Grand Master of the famous Knights Templar who built the square stone keep of Ballyhack Castle. The Knights Templar owned the substantial Kilcloggan estate at nearby Templetown. Ballyhack afforded them a perfect, deep, natural harbour to land their ships along this otherwise wild stretch of coastline. The Nook field runs alongside this bay. In the 15th century, the harbour and castle passed to the Knights Hospitallers of St John who ran four chapels here until the Protestant Reformation got underway.

A gravestone in Ballyhack marks the final resting place of Laurence Power, who supposedly died in 1836 at the advanced age of 170.