Curiosity. What's about Wexford? Well, there's a place in that county which has been described as having seven castles at one time; but now there are ruins of only three remaining. Yet a writer, Brewer, is on record in his Beauties of Ireland as stating that there were seven churches; and Robert Leigh, writing in 1684 says, there were five castles and two churches at this place - Clonmines. To complicate things further, or to make it all more interesting, a writer in the 1999 Wexford Association Yearbook, Colm Harpur, informs us that there are today "the remnants of three castles, ruins of three churches and remains of other monastic buildings". Busy in the past, yet the half-inch map of the area shows only a Clonmines House. (The one to hand, anyway). You'd want to hop into your car and drive off to get to the bottom of all this. For there is much else to titillate. For example, up to the Act of Union in 1800, Clonmines, though already "a place of ruins" still returned two MPs to Parliament. The town itself was destroyed in the wars of 1375-1409. Moreover, Clonmines "had a harbour for shipping of indifferent bulk until the sand filled up the ancient passage". In the Augustinian house at Grantstown the superior, writes Harpur, "is known as the Prior of Clonmines." It's all not so far from Bannow Strand where the invaders came in.
Wexford doesn't need to argue its place in history, and Richard Roche devotes his editorial to "Towards a New Patriotism", stressing the vital part played in local pride, attachment to place and defence of all that is best in one's own community. Such feeling, he writes, means safeguarding the countryside from the blight of litter, the protecting of our hedgerows, stone walls and ditches, "from the vandal-hands of industrialised farming". It also means the planting of trees, the painting of houses - the co-operative efforts of a people proud of their native place. Everyone, so to speak, looking after their own garden, front and back. "Losing our Sense of Community" is an article by Father Walter Forde, reprinted from this newspaper.
There are articles on Leo Rowsome: King of the Pipers, on Commandant Brennan-Whitmore, on the writer Mrs S. C. Hall, and many fine photographs, not forgetting the most original Tulach a' tSolais. Then "Cromwell in Wexford (Yes, There Was a Massacre)". All the work of the Dublin Wexford Association in conjunction with Meridian Media International Publishers of Ballybrack, Co. Dublin.