Rooms February 2023

with a number of Wexford ICA guilds to highlight the past and present of the organisation, their community initiatives and importance to the social fabric of Ireland. This exhibition was launched on 2nd March 2023 and runs until the end of May.

Enniscorthy Castle is open Mon-Fri 9.30am to 5pm with the last tour at 4.30pm. Throughout the weekend, the Castle is open from 12 noon to 5pm. Entry is €6 per adult and families can avail of a Family Saver ticket for €15. Students and senior citizens €5. Visit Enniscorthy Castle and the National 1798 Rebellion Centre for only €20 for the whole family!

www.enniscorthycastle.ie info@enniscorthycastle.ie Tel: 053 923 4699 n

LAUNCH OF NORMAN ROOMS IN ENNISCORTHY CASTLE, 16 FEBRUARY 2023, OPENING SPEECH BY MR SEAN DOYLE....

The Norman invasion in 1169 was a watershed in Ireland's history marking the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English and later British rule in our country, which even in 2023 impacts our everyday discourse; with our country partitioned, ongoing dispute and argument over the Northern Ireland Protocol and some politicians demanding a Border Poll.

This building we are in this evening originated with the Normans. The medieval history of Enniscorthy Castle begins in the early days of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Leader of this invasion was Strongbow, who granted the lands of the Duffry, which included Enniscorthy, to his trusted knight, Robert de Quency. De Quency, however, died in battle shortly after gaining his new lands which were then passed down to his infant daughter, Maud, who could regain her lands once she came of age.

In the meantime, the guardianship of the Duffry was in control of a man named Raymond le Gros. Le Gros would have constructed the first defensive structure on the site in the form of an earthen and timber 'Motte and Bailey' castle.

Around 1190, Maud de Quency married Philip de Prendergast and the couple regained the lands of the Duffry and constructed the first stone Castle on the site. Enniscorthy Castle remained in the ownership of the descendants of the Anglo-Normans until the Gaelic Irish revival in the late 1300s. In the 1370s, the Gaelic Irish chief Art MacMurrough Kavanagh retook the Castle by force, following which the Castle remained in his family's ownership until they finally surrendered in the 1530s.

For the next 50 years, Enniscorthy Castle remained in a ruined condition until the arrival of Sir Henry Wallop who rebuilt the Castle for military use upon its existing foundations. Wallop also defeated the last of the Gaelic Irish resistance in the locality which meant that Enniscorthy Town could be made into a plantation town in the 1620s. It was at this stage that the town began to grow and expand rapidly.

In the middle of the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell arrived in County Wexford and besieged Enniscorthy Castle. It was re-taken later the same year and then taken again by Cromwell's forces under the Governor of Wexford. It remained under foreign government control until the end of the 18th century.

During the Rebellion of 1798, the Castle was used as a prison by the crown forces to hold suspected rebels. In the early 1800s, Enniscorthy Castle was used as office space, but with the Fenian Rising in the 1860s it was used to billet the extra police forces assigned to the area.

In 1889, the Castle was leased for 999 years by P.J. Roche of New Ross. He gave Enniscorthy Castle to his son, Henry Roche, and his new wife, Josephine Shriver, to use as their home. The Roches spent a number of years renovating the Castle and moved in during 1903. The Roches were prominent and respected members of the commumty. In 1916 and again in 1922, the Roche family vacated the Castle during the occupation of the town and the Castle, first by the Irish Volunteers and then by the Free State Army.

In 1951, the Roches left the Castle to the management of the County to be used as a Museum. The Wexford County Museum opened in 1962 and closed in 2006 for major renovations and re-opened in 2011 as Enniscorthy Castle, with a focus on local history, industry and community.

I will digress for a couple of minutes by suggesting use for The Athenaeum, on which a considerable amount of money was spent on its renovation and is now lying idle. The powers that be should seriously consider returning all the artefacts that were displayed in the Castle Museum and create a home for them in The Athenaeum along with a professional Curator. It would bring The Athenaeum back into everyday use and prevent its deterioration and possible disintegration.

Before I conclude, I would like to refer to some writing dealing with the Normans. Goddard Henry Orpen of Monksgrange wrote a four-volume history of 'Ireland under the Normans 1169-1333'. It was reprinted in 1968. Billy Colfer published 'Arrogant Trespass. Anglo-Norman Wexford 1169-1400’.

Of course, we Doyles are of Viking extraction and there are a lot of surnames in county Wexford that are of Norman origin. Of course the Normans were second-hand Vikings.