Wexford
Wexford Loch Garman Wexford |
||
---|---|---|
|
||
Coordinates | 52 ° 20 '15 " N , 6 ° 27' 35" W | |
Symbols | ||
|
||
Motto "Per Aquam et Ignem" By water and fire |
||
Basic data | ||
Country | Ireland | |
Leinster | ||
county | Wexford | |
ISO 3166-2 | IE-WX | |
height | 1 m | |
surface | 20.2 km² | |
Residents | 20,188 (2016) | |
density | 999.4 Ew. / km² | |
Telephone code | +353/53 | |
Website | www.wexfordboroughcouncil.ie (English) | |
City of Wexford behind the Wexford Bridge
|
Wexford ( Irish : Loch Garman ) is the capital of the county of the same name Wexford in the southeast of the Republic of Ireland near the port of Rosslare Harbor . The city with 20,188 inhabitants (as of 2016) is located on the N11 national road to Dublin and on the N25 between Cork and Rosslare . Wexford is also connected to the Irish rail system via the Dublin – Rosslare Harbor route .
history
Wexford is on the southern edge of a small bay at the mouth of the River Slaney . The city was founded around 800 AD by the Vikings who called it Waes Fjord - Old Norse for entry to the mudflats .
In 1169 there was an invasion of the Normans in Wexford at the behest of the King of Leinster , Dermot MacMurrough , which led to the subsequent colonization of the county by the English. It is widely accepted that the Wexford Murphy clan descended from the king's brother. Yola , an old English dialect , was only spoken in Wexford until the 19th century.
During the 1640s, Wexford provided great support to the Confederation of Ireland . A fleet of Confederate privateers was stationed in the port of Wexford, which attacked English parliamentary ships from there and ceded part of their booty to the Confederation in Kilkenny . During the subsequent retaking of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell , the city was conquered, looted, and most of it burned down.
In 1798 County Wexford was the center of the Irish rebellion against English rule. The town of Wexford was occupied by the rebels during the uprising and was the scene of a notorious massacre in which the United Irishmen executed some local loyalists on the bridge in the center of town.
As a port city, Wexford was not very successful because the natural harbor had constantly changing sandbanks. Since the deep-water harbor in Rosslare was built 20 km south of Wexford in the early 20th century, only fishing boats and smaller private vessels have been moored in Wexford.
Today's Wexford
The town of Wexford is closely aligned with the quayside roads that run from northwest to southeast. Wexford's main street runs almost parallel to the river for a mile from Redmond Square to Barrack Street . Almost all of the city's shops are on this street, even if more and more shopping centers have opened on the city limits in the recent past. One of the longest bridges in Ireland connects the city with the northern hinterland.
Wexford is one of the largest and most important shopping cities in the south east of Ireland. Many national and international retail chains have branches here, e.g. B. Superdrug , Argos , Benetton , Adams , Boots and Tesco as well as the Irish companies Dunnes Stores , Carraig Donn , Shaw’s , Alexander Coe and Heatons .
In the 1990s there were a number of structural developments in Wexford in parallel with the country's economic boom, e.g. For example, the construction of the Key West Center at the harbor, the modernization of the entire quay system and the construction of Clonard Village , a large new residential area approx. Four km from the city center.
The Wexford Festival Opera , which specializes in opera rarities and thus attracts an international audience, takes place in Wexford every year in autumn .
Town twinning
Wexford maintains city partnerships to Couëron in the region Pays de la Loire (France) and Annapolis (Maryland) (United States).
Personalities
- Anna Maria Hall (1800–1881), writer
- John Joseph McGee (1845–1927), civil servant in Canada
- Robert Brennan (1881–1964), diplomat and writer
- Bunny Ahearne (1900–1985), ice hockey official, President of the IIHF
- Dan O'Herlihy (1919-2005), actor
- John Banville (* 1945), writer and author
- Dick Roche (* 1947), Fianna Fáil politician
- Billy Roche (* 1949), actor, playwright and prose writer
- Brendan Howlin (* 1956), Irish Labor Party politician
- Nick Dunning (born 1959), actor
- Eoin Colfer (* 1965), writer
- Sean Patrick Saßmannshausen (* 1971), German economist
- Gordon D'Arcy (born 1980), national rugby union player
- Wallis Bird (* 1982), musician
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wexford (agglomeration) on citypopulation.de, accessed on September 5, 2017
- ↑ Coueron - Jumelages ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Annapolis Sister City Program ( Memento of the original from November 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.