Jack Bailey’s bar was situated at the corner of Talbot Green and Green Street in the St. Aidan’s area of Wexford Town. Wexford businessman Des Pettitt opened the pub in 2001. It operated until 28 August 2018, when staff members were suddenly told they were being made redundant.
Before Jack Bailey’s, the site was home to the Phoenix. A couple from Wellington Bridge, Tom and Margaret Howlin, opened it in 1984. They ran it until July 2001, when they decided to sell the property to Pettitt and retire from the pub trade.
The Phoenix was the scene of a shooting on Sunday, 5 November 2000. At around 9.30 p.m., John Hendrick (19), a local Talbot Green man, arrived at the bar armed with a double-barrelled shotgun. After shooting his ex-girlfriend, Amy Bolger (16), in the back, he turned the gun on himself.
Hendrick and Bolger had been in a turbulent relationship for about two years. She had reportedly ended the relationship about two months before the shooting.
On the day of the shooting, Bolger was socialising with friends in the Phoenix. At around 7 p.m., Hendrick entered the pub and demanded to see her phone. One report suggests he was upset because he believed Bolger had been texting another man who was also present that night. During the heated exchange, Hendrick reportedly pulled Bolger by the hair and threw her to the ground. He eventually left after another person intervened.
Later that evening, he stole a shotgun from his friend’s father’s house in Bishopswater, returned to the pub, and asked to speak to Bolger outside. Following a short conversation in the car park, Bolger turned to go back inside. Hendrick called her name. When she turned around, he fired the gun at her and then turned it on himself.
Hendrick died almost instantly. Bolger survived the shooting, sustaining serious injuries to her shoulder and right arm.