Brimming with vitality and information, Nicholas Furlong's comprehensive A History of County Wexford is an indispensable guide to Wexford's history, culture and people. Furlong starts with Wexford's first settlement and tells the story of Wexford up to the present day, looking at its Gaelic origins, its turbulence during Cromwellian times and its pivotal role in 1798. County Wexford lies in the south eastern corner of Ireland. It is bounded to the west by the River Barrow and the Blackstairs Mountains, to the north by the Wicklow Mountains and by the sea on the other two sides. The River Slaney flows diagonally through the centre, dividing the county north and south. First settled seven thousand years ago, the county has hosted a variety of cultures from Celts to Vikings, Flemish and Normans to English. Historically, it maintained a social, confessional and ethnic mix of populations that was more varied than most other parts of the island. Because of its key strategic position, it has always been militarily important and was the focus of the great rebellion of 1798, the most bloody conflict in modern Irish history. Nicholas Furlong traces the history of the county from its earliest settlements through its Gaelic, Christian, Norse and Norman phases of life to the turbulence of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian regimes. He brings the reader through the great upheaval of 1798 and the institutional revival of Catholicism in the nineteenth century, which was particularly focused on County Wexford. He details the continued prosperity of the county throughout modern times. Driven by the sporting and cultural revival of the 1950s – the birth of the Wexford Opera Festival and the legendary hurling team of that era – Wexford has today built itself into the nation's holiday playground and a vital European transport hub. A History of County Wexford: Table of Contents - County Wexford's First Humans - The Celts and the Age of Iron - The Dawn of Christianity - The Kingdom of Uí Chennselaig - Uí Chennselaig Expands, Norsemen Land - The Vikings in Wexford - Years of Power - Dermot, King of Leinster - The Market for Swords - The New Foreigners - Infestation and Restoration - Art Mór MacMurrough Kavanagh - The World Changes - Havoc and War - From Cromwell to William - Two Kings, Two Bishops - Revolution - A Final Solution - Less Turbulent Years - The Technology Age - War and Peace - ConsolidationEpilogue Our Homeland

Carrick, Co. Wexford, is one of the most enigmatic and misunderstood medieval sites in Ireland. Built in the autumn and winter of 1169 by Robert Fitz Stephen, one of the first knights to land at Bannow Bay, Carrick is the oldest Anglo-Norman fortification in the country. The site developed as an important borough in the thirteenth century and it was home to one of the first Marshal castles in the south-east. It was also the site of one of Ireland's earliest Anglo-Norman deer parks. Over the centuries the site has passed in and out of public consciousness. Since 1987, it has been incorporated within the Irish National Heritage Park, which partnered with the Irish Archaeology Field School in 2018 to carry out a major archaeological research programme "Digging the Lost Town of Carrig". This volume details the results of the project to date, as well as select previous research at the site, and is published to coincide with a series of events to commemorate the 850th anniversary of both the site and the Anglo-Norman landing.

"The Hook Peninsula continues the Irish Rural Landscape series, building on the research agenda established by the internationally successful Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape. Located in county Wexford, this region was the first to be conquered by the Anglo-Normans and its landscape was shaped by the establishment of two Cistercian abbeys (Tintern and Dunbrody) in the Middle Ages. The location of the peninsula beside a major estuary and busy shipping lanes was of vital importance. The Hook figured prominently in the Confederate Wars in the seventeenth century and in the 1798 rebellion." "This compact and highly distinctive peninsula makes for a compelling case-study in which Billy Colfer carefully knits the local story into a wider narrative. An eye for detail and an intuitive understanding of his local community creates a vivid story, while Colfer's obvious love for the Hook infuses the volume with an underlying passion all the more moving for being understated. Ireland, 'an island nation', has at last a volume informed by a maritime perspective from a writer who understands the sea and its formative influence on landscapes and lives. In these beautiful pages, an astonishing array of maps, photographs, paintings, archive sketches and new drawings ensure that the Hook landscape is given a radiant treatment."--BOOK JACKET.