Things to Do in County Wexford

More about County Wexford

Where to base yourself

Wexford town is the sensible centre of gravity: narrow medieval lanes off a long quay, the best choice of places to eat in the county, and everything from Curracloe to Johnstown inside twenty minutes. Gorey and Courtown suit the north of the county and are the easiest run from Dublin, about ninety minutes on the M11. Rosslare is two places worth keeping straight — Rosslare Strand is the beach village with the hotels, Rosslare Harbour five kilometres on is the ferry port, and you do not want to book one thinking it is the other. For the Hook, Fethard-on-Sea or Kilmore Quay put you inside the peninsula instead of driving in and out of it each day, and New Ross covers the western end. Two dates fill the county: the last week of June and the Wexford Festival Opera in late October, when the town is busier than it is in August.

The beaches

Wexford has more usable sand than any county on the east coast and it is rarely all busy at once. Carne in the south-east corner is the calm-water option, shallow and sheltered enough for small children, with Blue Flag status most years. Morriscastle on the north-east coast is a long, dune-backed strand with far fewer people on it than Curracloe on the same day. Ballyteige Burrow west of Kilmore Quay is a nine-kilometre dune spit — a walk more than a swim, and a good one at low tide. Cahore Point gives you a short, easy cliff walk if you want something other than lying down. Lifeguards are on the main beaches in July and August only; the east-coast currents around river mouths are real, so swim at the flagged sections.

The Hook and the Norman coast

The Hook is the county’s best day’s driving, and the history on it is unusually concrete. The Normans came ashore at Bannow in 1169 and dug in at Baginbun the following year, where a headland earthwork and a small beach still mark the spot that a local rhyme credits with winning Ireland. Tintern Abbey at Saltmills was founded around 1200 by William Marshal in thanks for surviving a storm at sea; the restored Colclough walled garden across the river is the part most people miss, and the woodland path between them is free. Duncannon pairs a wide strand with a star-shaped fort built against a Spanish invasion. Loftus Hall, long sold as Ireland’s haunted house, changed hands in 2020 and has not run public tours since — you can see it from the road, and that is all.

Towns, 1798 and the opera

Selskar Abbey in Wexford town is the ruin most visitors walk past without noticing, tucked behind the old town wall near Westgate; it is where Henry II is said to have done penance for Becket’s murder. The National Opera House on High Street is a modern auditorium dropped into the middle of the medieval street plan, and it runs a full year of programming, not just the October festival. Inland, the National 1798 Rebellion Centre in Enniscorthy sets up the rebellion properly before you climb the hill above the town where it ended. Ferns further north was the capital of Leinster and Dermot MacMurrough’s seat — a castle ruin, an abbey and a cathedral in a village of a few hundred people. Just outside Wexford, Johnstown Castle is the reliable half-day: Gothic Revival towers, ornamental lakes, walled gardens and the Irish Agricultural Museum in the old farm buildings, with admission charged for the grounds.

Birds, islands and wet days

Wexford Wildfowl Reserve on the North Slob, reclaimed mudflat behind a sea wall, holds a large share of the world’s Greenland white-fronted geese from October to April — free hides, a visitor centre, and one of the genuinely great winter wildlife sights in Ireland. Offshore, the Saltee Islands are privately owned but landings are allowed by day in the seabird season, roughly May to July, on boats from Kilmore Quay; there are no facilities, no shelter and no fixed timetable, so it depends entirely on the sea. The Raven behind Curracloe is a pine forest planted on dunes, with easy waymarked loops that work in weather that has closed the beach. In heavy rain, the Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig is largely outdoors but the reconstructions give you somewhere to shelter between them.

When to go

June to September for the beaches, October to March for the geese, and late October for the opera. Ferries from Rosslare to Wales and France run year-round and are the reason a lot of people pass through — if you are sailing, an extra night on this side beats an early-morning motorway run.