The ruins of St. Patrick’s Church are situated at the end of High Street, close to the centre of Wexford Town. Its surrounding graveyard, which is bounded with the town wall, holds the bodies of the victims of Cromwell’s sacking of the town in October of 1649. The site is also the resting place for many of those that were killed during the 1798 Rebellion.
The church dates back to medieval times and it is one of the earliest surviving and best-preserved Christian ecclesiastical sites in the town. The parish that it belonged to was one of the five parishes that existed inside the walls of the Norse-Irish town of Wexford. At the time, it was common for Norse towns to have a complex parish system, with multiple parishes existing within a relatively small area. Although the year of its establishment is unknown, it does predate the Norman invasion of Ireland, which occurred in 1169.
St. Patrick’s Church is the resting place for the headless body of United Irishman John Henry Colclough, whom the British executed on the 28th of June, 1798. During an attempt to flee to France, Colclough and his wife were betrayed by a local farmer on the Saltee Islands. Following his arrest, he was returned to Wexford town and hanged on Wexford Bridge. Afterwards, his head was displayed on a pike. During the night, a group of nationalists managed to recover Colclough’s body and bring it to the grounds of St. Patrick’s Church. His head was never found.
In the vicinity of the church, exists a clay rampart, which is a defensive structure that was built to help defend against Oliver Cromwell’s cannons in 1649.
Location
The gates are typically opened between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The entrance is located at the end of High Street, near the top of Allen Street and Patrick’s Lane. There is a car park on High Street. However, it can be extremely busy, depending on the time and the day of the week (it is right beside the town centre, which makes it an extremely popular place to park).
