The banded grey rock at the tip of Forlorn Point is over 620 million years old, some of the oldest exposed anywhere in Ireland. It was laid down in a shallow sea near the South Pole, long before there was an Ireland to be part of, then welded onto the edge of the continent when the ancient landmasses of Avalonia and Laurentia collided along the Iapetus suture that still runs across the island. If you only do one thing here, walk the short geological trail along the shore: an information board decodes the formations, and the walk passes vertical dykes of dark volcanic rock (around 400 million years old) and a small exposure of schist near the Memorial Garden.
Forlorn Point – ‘The Forlorn’ to locals – is the headland that shelters the fishing village of Kilmore Quay, at the south-west corner of County Wexford. Ordnance Survey Ireland records it as Crossfarnoge or Forlorn Point (Irish: Rinn Chrois Fhearnóg, ‘cross of alders’); the English name probably comes from the Yola word furloan, ‘foreland’. Below the white-washed cottages a working marina moors yachts, sea-angling charters and the boats out to the Saltee Islands, and from the seawall you look straight at Ireland’s largest seabird colony.
Those Saltee boat trips leave from the harbour in summer, weather permitting rather than to a fixed daily timetable, so it’s worth ringing ahead rather than turning up and assuming.
Lifeboats and lookouts
The RNLI put its first lifeboat on the point in 1847. That station lasted barely a decade, falling into disuse by 1857; a permanent brick station followed later, and a lifeboat has been moored in the harbour continuously since 2004. High on the headland stands Lookout Post 15, one of the chain of concrete posts built along the coast by the Coast Watching Service during the Second World War – the Emergency, as it was known here. The post is still in good order, and the nearby EIRE stone marker, laid to warn off wartime aircraft, is being restored.
The grave the storm uncovered
In October 2017 the tail of Storm Ophelia tore into the promenade and exposed a shallow pit with a largely complete human skeleton in it. Archaeologists and the State Pathologist confirmed the remains were ancient, likely Iron Age or early medieval, somewhere between roughly 500 BC and 400 AD, and sent them to the National Museum of Ireland for radiocarbon dating. The spot now has statutory protection. It is a reminder of how little is recorded about the people who lived along this exposed coast.
A graveyard of ships
The reefs off Forlorn Point and the Saltees have wrecked boats for centuries, and locals call the waters ‘the graveyard of a thousand ships’. More than 60 wrecks are documented nearby, among them the 19th-century Lismore and Malgenio. Anything over 100 years old is protected under the National Monuments Act, and divers who recover artefacts must report them to the National Museum. Under the Wexford County Development Plan the headland itself is a protected County Geological Site.
Getting there and around
The R734 runs down to Kilmore Quay from Rosslare, about 19 km. Wexford Bus runs several services a day between Wexford town and the village, calling at Johnstown Castle and Bridgetown, but there is no Sunday service. There is a small car park by the harbour and some roadside space beyond it. The headland, promenade and geological trail are open all year and free; there is no visitor centre, and the lifeboat station can be seen from the quay but isn’t open for tours.
Time the lower part of the geological trail to a falling tide – the rock platforms are partly submerged at high water and slick when wet – and give the walk out along the seawall to the little grassy island half an hour. From there a footpath carries on west toward Ballyteige Bay and the dunes of Ballyteige Burrow Nature Reserve.