David Pepper sat down with Ports, Past and Present to share the origin of the old nickname for the people of Fishguard in the once properous trade in herrings before the disappearance of the vast schoals in the eighteenth century.

Fishguard harbour's natural properties made it a uniquely safe and reliant harbour through the centuries. Not only did the town support its own fishing industry, specialising in herring trade, but it also offered reliable anchorage to international…

Arklow Harbour in county Wicklow on the east coast of Ireland was founded in the ninth century after the Danish Vikings had landed. The Irish name for this town is Inbhear Mór which translates to wide or large estuary. A distinct feature of this…

Sailing ships needed large crews and a seafarer tradition became an important source of employment in Wexford in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fishing industry thrived, and with it the prosperity of this coastal community. By 1788…

Along the river Barrow, nestled upon a Caledonian batholith, on the Kilkenny side of the bank, lies a little town named Graiguenamanagh. It is in this village that our story begins, with a man called Gorman who was busy cutting Granite on the Quay…

County Wexford is no stranger to the musical tradition of ballads and the county possesses a rich and varied repertoire of verse. Given the long stretch of coastline that runs along Wexford county and the tradition of fishing, especially for…

It is thought that Fishguard was named from the Old Norse Fiskigarðr,a ‘fish catching enclosure’. What remains here today is very unlikely to date back that far but we know the style of low-walled hook-shaped trap is an ancient one. Remains of…

The folklore gathered at the Irish Schools’ Collection contains many tall tales, strange happenings and stories of the supernatural spanning the length and breadth of Ireland. The example below, reported by Lill Dempsey of Ballyboher, County…