The ruins of St. Mary Magdalene’s Church and its graveyard are located in Maudlintown in Wexford Town, next to the entrance to Danone. The church has Danish and Norse origins. A high wall conceals the graveyard from public view, leaving many passers-by unaware of its existence.
The name “Maudlintown” is believed to have originated from the church. An 1890 newspaper article noted that the hospital was built outside Wexford’s walls because lepers were not allowed to remain within the town.
In medieval times, leprosy was poorly understood. The bacterial infection caused permanent damage to the skin, and those displaying symptoms were often expelled from society.
Recent studies have shown that leprosy is not as contagious as previously thought. Historians believe that many people with signs of scurvy and syphilis could have been misdiagnosed with the disease.
A church and leper hospital dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene were established on the site in 1176. The hospital is thought to have been founded by Richard de Clare, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. He arrived in Wexford Town in 1170 following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169.
An 1892 account in the Wexford People offers a different founding story. According to this source, the hospital was created in 1170 by Terrand, a leper and companion-in-arms of Raymond le Gros, who endowed it after his own experience with the disease. It states that the hospital was presided over by a religious order comprising Brethren and Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene.
The account records the hospital’s endowment under Richard II, which included the townlands of Rochestown and Maudlintown, the tithes of the parish of Ballyvaloo, the towns of Molgonone and Pembrokestown, and three small messuages in the parish of St. Mary’s in Wexford.
In 1408, King Henry IV granted custody of the hospital for lepers to John Rochford. The hospital adjoined the church, and the surrounding houses would have provided living quarters for the infected. The hospital later belonged to the Knights of St. John Hospitallers during the reign of Edward IV.
The Crown suppressed the leper hospital in 1541 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Following Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, the church fell into further disrepair as anti-Catholic legislation took hold. Several of the old Norse-built churches in Wexford Town, including the church of St. Peter in Peter’s Square, were dismantled for building materials. An Ordnance Survey map from the 1800s shows the church’s location in Maudlintown with the label “(in ruins).”
In his book The Little Book of Wexford, historian Nicky Rossiter points out that many residents refused to be buried at St. Mary Magdalene’s graveyard, presumably because of the stigma surrounding leprosy, and instead chose to be interred in other parishes in the town.
An 1892 report in the Wexford People, titled “The New Cemetery,” stated that the graveyard had only been used as a burial ground in comparatively recent years. According to the report, the grandfather of Nathaniel Hughes was the first person interred there, and the site had never been consecrated, “at least in modern times.”
Map
A map showing its location: