St Mary Magdalene’s church and its graveyard lie on the regional R730 road in Wexford Town. The church is of Danish and Norse origins. The site sits halfway between the traffic lights in Maudlintown and the entrance to Wexford Creamery. A high wall conceals the site from the general public, leaving many locals and passers-by unaware of the graveyard’s existence. The name “Maudlintown” is believed to have originated from the name of this church.
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 the 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, who arrived in Wexford Town in 1170 following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169.
In medieval times, leprosy was poorly understood. The bacterial infection can cause permanent damage to the skin, and those displaying symptoms were often expelled from society. People with symptoms of scurvy and syphilis could have been misdiagnosed as having the disease. Recent studies have shown that leprosy is not as contagious as previously thought, and the infection is treatable today.
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. In his book The Little Book of Wexford, historian Nicky Rossiter points out that many residents refused burial in the graveyard of St Mary Magdalene’s, presumably because of the stigma surrounding leprosy, and chose instead to be buried in other parishes in Wexford Town. 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. The church fell into further disrepair following Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, as anti-Catholic legislation took hold. Several of the old Norse-built churches in Wexford Town were dismantled for building materials, and the church of St Peter in Peter’s Square met a similar fate. An Ordnance Survey map from the 1800s shows the church’s location in Maudlintown, along with the label “(in ruins).”
Map
A map showing its location: