Bannow, Banú, Co. Wexford

Banú · Co. Wexford

Where Ireland changed. The Normans came ashore on 1 May 1169.

On 1 May 1169 three ships out of Milford Haven beached on the south side of Bannow Bay. Robert FitzStephen led them - a Welsh-Norman knight, half-brother to Maurice FitzGerald, sprung from a Welsh prison on the condition he sail to Ireland. With him: thirty mailed knights, sixty other men-at-arms, three hundred bowmen. Diarmait Mac Murchada, the deposed king of Leinster, met them on the strand the next morning with five hundred of his own. They marched on Wexford town within the week and took it. The Anglo-Norman story in Ireland starts here, on a bit of sand most people drive past.

A Norman town grew up on the headland after - a place called Bannow, with St Mary's Church at its centre, six streets of thatched houses, a small castle and a sheltered harbour behind the dunes. It traded for a hundred and fifty years. Then in 1348 the Black Death came in off a trading vessel and tore through it the way plague tears through ports. The town never recovered. The harbour silted. The dunes shifted. By the 1600s the houses were ruins, and by the 1800s only the church stood - and only because it sat thirty feet up on solid ground. What the locals call Bannow Island is now joined to the mainland by sand. The town is under it.

Modern Bannow is Carrig-on-Bannow, a small crossroads village a few kilometres inland. There is a pub, a chipper, a coffee shop, a community hall, a graveyard. The bay is ten minutes down the road. St Mary's Church ruin stands on the old peninsula, walls open to the wind, sea on three sides. Walk out to it. Read the date on the headstones. Stand where FitzStephen's men slept the first night. Then drive on. There isn't much else here. There doesn't need to be.

Population

Tiny - a crossroads village (Carrig-on-Bannow)

Walk score

A church ruin, a bay, and a road

Founded

Norman landing 1 May 1169; medieval town 13th c.

Coords

52.2292° N, 6.7394° W

01 / 08

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The bay

Three ships, one tide, eight hundred years.

FitzStephen landed near here on 1 May 1169 with thirty knights, sixty men-at-arms and three hundred Welsh archers. Diarmait Mac Murchada had asked them to come. Nothing in Ireland was the same after.

Stories & lore → 02 The lost town

A medieval port the sand swallowed.

A Norman town grew here in the 1200s - six streets of thatched houses, a small castle, a sheltered port. The Black Death gutted it in 1348 and the sand finished the job. By the 17th century, gone.

Walks & outings → 03 The fields

What you see today is farmland.

Modern Bannow is Carrig-on-Bannow, a crossroads village a few kilometres inland. One pub, one chipper, one coffee shop. The history is the reason to come. The village is the place to put the car.

The letter →

02 / 08

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Colfer's

Local, music-led

Country pub & trad sessions

The pub in the village. Hosts the Phil Murphy Weekend each year - a traditional music festival named for the local piper. Sessions through the year, properly local. If it's open and the door is cracked, go in.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The Red Door Coffee Shop & Deli	Coffee shop & deli	€	Day-time food, homemade breads and cakes. Saturday-evening dinner sittings if you book. The local consensus on where to eat in Carrig.
Frydaz's	Chipper	€	Family-run takeaway in the village. Fish, chips, the standard chipper roster. Closed midweek some weeks - ring before you drive.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

FitzStephen's three ships

The first of May, 1169

Robert FitzStephen sailed from Milford Haven in early May 1169 in three ships, with about thirty knights, sixty men-at-arms and three hundred Welsh archers. They beached at Bannow Bay and were met the next morning by Maurice de Prendergast with another ten knights and sixty archers. Diarmait Mac Murchada, deposed king of Leinster, joined them with five hundred Irish soldiers and within the week they had taken Wexford town. Strongbow himself didn't arrive for another year. But this was the moment - the small landing on a quiet bay that ended up in every Irish history book ever written.

Medieval Bannow

The town that the sand took

After the conquest a Norman town grew on the headland inside the bay - six streets of thatched houses around St Mary's Church, a small castle, a port sheltered behind the dunes. It traded with Bristol and Wales for a hundred and fifty years. Then the Black Death arrived in 1348 on a merchant ship, the way it arrived everywhere on the western seaboard, and a port town like Bannow was hit harder than the inland villages. The harbour was silting at the same time. The dunes were creeping. By the 17th century the place was abandoned. The sand kept coming until what had been an island was a peninsula.

A church on high ground

Why St Mary's still stands

Of the entire medieval town of Bannow, one building survives - St Mary's Church, 13th-century, Romanesque doorway, crenellated wall-tops because in 1200s Wexford a parish church was also a place to take cover. It survived because it was built thirty feet above the surrounding ground, on rock the dunes could not bury. Walk out to it now and you walk past where the streets used to be. There is no signage to tell you. There is only the church, the wind off the bay, and the sea on three sides where there once was a town.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

St Mary's Church ruin The 13th-century church ruin on the old peninsula - nave, chancel, blocked doorway, crenellated walls. Park at the laneway end and walk in over the dunes. The graveyard is still in use. Sea on three sides. The whole reason you are here.

1 km return from the gatedistance

30 mintime

Bannow Island headland What the maps still call Bannow Island is a sandy peninsula now, joined to the mainland by drift. Walk the dune-edge from the church around the headland and back. Nothing to look at except the bay, the sky and the place where a town used to be. That is the point.

3 km loopdistance

1 hourtime

Bannow Bay shore The bay itself - shallow, tidal, important for over-wintering brent geese and waders. There is no continuous shoreline path; pick a spot off the local roads, walk for an hour, watch the birds. Wellies in winter. Binoculars year round.

As far as you fancydistance

1-2 hourstime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

May 1st is the anniversary of the landing. The locals mark it some years and not others. The bay in spring is full of bird life and quiet.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, dry walks out to the church, the sea actually warm enough to put a foot in. The Phil Murphy Weekend at Colfer's is normally early August.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Brent geese arriving on the bay from the Canadian Arctic, big skies, the village empty of the few summer visitors it gets. The best season for the place.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Wind off the bay is serious. The walks are exposed. Colfer's shortens the music week. If you go, go for the weather, not despite it.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a heritage centre or visitor experience

There isn't one. No interpretive centre, no gift shop, no audio guide. The site of the most consequential landing in Irish history is a field with a church ruin in it. Read the history before you come.

Conflating Bannow Bay with Baginbun

FitzStephen landed at Bannow Bay in May 1169. Raymond le Gros landed at Baginbun Head, on the Hook Peninsula south of Fethard-on-Sea, a year later in May 1170. Two different beaches, two different years. The rhyme - "At the creek of Baginbun, Ireland was lost and won" - refers to the second landing.

A long evening in the village

Carrig-on-Bannow is a crossroads, not a town. One pub, one chipper, one coffee shop. Sleep in Wexford town, New Ross or Fethard-on-Sea and do Bannow as an afternoon.