People of Enniscorthy

Joy Quigley
A Model County Rose

I’m 26 years old and I work for myself as a Personal Trainer, Online Coach and Yoga Instructor. I’m also currently studying for my Postgraduate Degree in Sports Science, specialising in The Science of Female Sport (I know what you’re thinking; I don’t know where I get the time for it all either!)

Ferns is my home village and Enniscorthy my home town and I am always so proud to support both in whatever way I can. I had the honour of representing this beautiful town as the Strawberry Queen in 2019. The experience allowed me to grow as an individual, so much so that I now very proudly represent the home of the Yellow Bellies as this year’s Wexford Rose in the Rose of Tralee Festival. Being an ambassador for Ferns, Enniscorthy and County Wexford is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and I hope I can do ye all proud!

Michael Devereux
Helping locals grow their own

In February 2021, I had a vision for Enniscorthy Community Allotments which I shared with local Cllr. Aidan Browne and set about making it a reality for the district of Enniscorthy. I put together a very comprehensive set of plans of my vision and organised a strong committee with a mixed skillset to help with this endeavour.
Remarkably, since then, we identified a 1.5 acre site, negotiated its use as an Allotments, developed the facility from scratch, allocated all the available space to our 250 plus members, and are now looking at extending it further to develop a training and education facility. Recently RTE’s Nationwide programme visited us to learn all about our success to date.
Enniscorthy is a town always open to new ideas, and particularly now around sustainability, and the local Enniscorthy Municipal District Council is always willing and able to support those ideas and help turn them into actions.

Richie Cotter
A warm welcome awaits

In January 2011 my wife Mary and I made the decision to move to Enniscorthy in Co. Wexford. As a Kilkenny man, it was a brave decision! But I can honestly say it was one of our best decisions, as we have made many true friends and become very involved in the local community.
The music and festival scene in Enniscorthy is remarkable. I am lucky enough to be involved in organising two of the town’s biggest festivals – the Rockin’ Food & Fruit Festival which attracts 100,000 visitors to the town each year on the August bank holiday weekend, and the excellent Wexford Literary Festival which celebrated its tenth successful year in 2022. In addition, the town hosts the Blackstairs Blues Festival every September – it is Ireland’s longest consecutively-running Blues festival hosting major national and international Blues acts. Enniscorthy is also home to the very active South East Rock ‘n’ Roll Club which organises weekly dance classes (in the Bailey cafe bar 7.30pm each Wednesday) and regular live rock ‘n’ roll gigs throughout the year in the town’s many character-filled pubs.
If music is your thing – make sure to visit Enniscorthy soon. You won’t regret it!

Kevin Foley
Enniscorthy for the sports enthusiast

Captaining the Wexford senior hurling team is an honour I’ll always treasure, but winning the Wexford senior hurling and football championships in the one calendar year (2021) with my Enniscorthy club, Rapparees Starlights, particularly after a 43-year barren spell in hurling, is hard to surpass.
While hurling and football are huge sports in the town, Enniscorthy is blessed with virtually every sporting facility imaginable. There are several soccer clubs in the town all with their own pitches and facilities. One local club, Moyne Rangers, the home of Festy Ebosele who recently got called up to the Irish senior international squad, is celebrating 50 years in existence in 2022. Enniscorthy Rugby Club has just won promotion in its first year competing in the All-Ireland League. Several top-class golf courses are on our doorstep, and a town-centre pitch & putt club which hosts national competitions. Also in town is a great tennis club, a successful hockey club (home of Lisa Jacob, one of Ireland’s most capped players and current Irish women’s hockey team manager), an international-standard running track, two modern swimming pools, the only greyhound track in Co. Wexford, several multi-purpose astro pitches, numerous gyms, etc. For the horse racing enthusiast, Enniscorthy is the home place of top trainers Jim Bolger and Paul Nolan, and Wexford Racecourse is only twenty minutes away. And you can even go kayaking on the majestic river Slaney which flows through the town.
New members are always welcome at all the sports facilities in town, so for the sporting enthusiast, it’s hard to beat Enniscorthy!

Evan Corrigan
A student setting his sights high!

I am a 14-year-old student at Enniscorthy Community College – one of nine schools in Enniscorthy – talk about being spoilt for choice! The four second-level schools in town are St Mary’s CBS, Enniscorthy Community College, Coláiste Bríde, and Meánscoil Gharman. The four primary schools are: St Aidan’s (the largest primary school in Ireland outside of Dublin), St Senan’s, St Mary’s, and Gaelscoil Inis Córthaidh. In addition St Patrick’s school, serving children with special needs, is one of the best in the country and has just moved into a new, state-of-the-art school building.

I recently had the good fortune to be involved in a project helping to write a poem which is being lasered onto the surface of Ireland’s first satellite, which will be launched early in 2023. You could say I’m over the moon!

Sean Doyle
A town steeped in history

“The town of Enniscorthy stands beside the Slaney in the centre of Wexford county; a steep town with street climbing above street from the Norman Castle up to where Pugin’s Cathedral overlooks the scene. It is a homely, handsome place with spacious fair-green and squares, convents, factories, mills, stores, fine schools; overall an air of prosperity that comes from the goodness of the surrounding land and the industry of the people; a democratic place, Irish as the quartz rock on which it stands. From the centre, you look across the river meadow to another hill, Vinegar Hill, on the east bank, crowned by an ancient windmill tower, and wider prospects are through woods to the purple folds of the mountains. If it were in France or Italy, the world would hear of Enniscorthy’s beauty, painters and etchers would depict it in a hundred aspects.”

So wrote Aodh de Blacam in 1949. The Enniscorthy of the factories and mills have changed with the consolidation and rationalisation of industry and the changing face of agriculture. With the onset of urban renewal and the Celtic Tiger much has changed in the ancient town over the past twenty years. It is generally accepted that in spite of the regeneration and architectural revival of some prominent areas of the town, much has remained the same.

Cathy Keane
Beauty on our doorstep

Being involved in a tourism business, I’m so lucky to spend a lot of my time taking visitors all around Enniscorthy and the surrounding area. In Enniscorthy, we are fortunate to have an 800-year-old castle right in the centre of town, the elegant River Slaney enhanced by its dedicated walking trail running alongside it, and of course historic Vinegar Hill with its dramatic views of the surrounding landscape.

We enjoy Ireland’s best weather and an enviable location just an hour by motorway from south Dublin, forty minutes from Rosslare Europort, and twenty minutes from some of the best beaches in the world. Director Steven Spielberg was so impressed by nearby Curracloe beach that he filmed the famous beach-landing scene from Saving Private Ryan there and more recently the Brooklyn movie beach scenes were filmed there. Wells House, Oulart Hill, Curracloe (where you can learn to surf), the villages of Blackwater and Kilmuckridge with their nearby beaches, Borodale, Secret Valley Wildlife Park & Zoo, Mount Leinster with its stunning walking trails, etc are all on our doorstep. Within a short drive, there’s Courtown, Rosslare, New Ross, Wexford town, Johnstown Castle and the Hook Head peninsula. You’ll always be spoilt for things to see and do in Enniscorthy and beyond.

Fintan Kelly
The arts are alive and well in Enniscorthy

Hailed by James Joyce in Ulysses as “the finest place in the world”, drama and the arts generally are now a huge part of Enniscorthy’s cultural offering.
The emergence of the town’s own arts centre – The Presentation Arts Centre and the resurrection of Enniscorthy Drama Group have been the catalyst for an explosion in all the art forms in the town, and have been the springboard that has allowed me progress as a professional actor appearing in TV series like Game of Thrones and Fair City, as well as appearing nationally and internationally in plays such as Howie The Rookie and Shroud. I have now written my first play which is being staged later in 2022 by Enniscorthy Drama Group.
Make sure to visit Enniscorthy Castle to see its permanent exhibition on Eileen Gray – the iconic architect and designer who was born and raised in Enniscorthy.
Our literary heritage includes the multi-award-winning writer Colm Tóibín and the internationally renowned poet Anthony Cronin. Our modern-day bestsellers include Carmel Harrington and children’s writer Caroline Busher.
For anyone interested in the arts, Enniscorthy is a great place to visit or, better still, move to!

Irene Cadogan
Enniscorthy’s sustainability journey

Enniscorthy is emerging as one of Ireland’s leading towns in the area of sustainability, and I’m delighted to be a part of the very active Sustainable Enniscorthy group. We have recently been approved for funding for the development of an Energy Master Plan for our town and Enniscorthy has also been designated as a pilot Decarbonisation Zone for Co. Wexford.
We are working on a number of other projects including a major arts project, based around sustainability, which is being rolled out at present.

Paul Campbell
The unique character of Enniscorthy’s businesses

I love the fact that Enniscorthy is still very much served by local, independent, owner-managed shops and services like my own shoe repair and locksmith shop. This gives the town its unique character.

Most of our shops, pubs, restaurants etc are situated on quaint streets with traditional shopfronts. Make sure to visit Slaney Street with its summer canopy of colourful umbrellas, and check out our old historic pubs like Stamps, McDonald’s, Hayes and Patrick Furlong’s.

Expect a warm, friendly welcome in every establishment and enjoy the hospitality Enniscorthy is famous for.