Bree
Brí, Co. Wexford

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Brí · Co. Wexford

A village, a hill, a 5,000-year-old dolmen at the top.

Bree is a small village in the middle of County Wexford, between Enniscorthy and Wexford town, a few miles inland of the N11. The village itself is a crossroads - a church, a school, a pub, a shop, a community centre. Most people who hear of Bree have heard of it because of the hill.

Bree Hill is the reason to come. There are 23 kilometres of forest trails laid out across it in three looped walks, and at the top, in the woods, there is a portal tomb that has been standing there for somewhere between four and six thousand years. The trail to the dolmen was only opened to the public relatively recently. You park at the community centre, walk up through beech and pine, and at the top you find a thing older than the pyramids sitting quietly in a clearing. It is the kind of detour that people drive past forever and never make.

Population

316

Coords

52.4658° N, 6.6206° W

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At a glance.

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

01 Bree Hill

A wooded hill above a small village.

23 km of forest trails on Bree Hill, all looping out from the community centre car park. Three colour-coded loops, all moderate.

Walks → 02 The dolmen

Wexford's oldest standing structure.

The Ballybrittas portal tomb sits in the woods at the top of Bree Hill. Two portal stones, a backstone, a roof stone. Neolithic - 4000 to 2500 BC.

Stories → 03 The village

One pub, one shop, one church.

About 5 miles south of Enniscorthy, off the N11 at Oilgate. The pub is Byrne's. The walks are signposted from the community centre. That's most of it.

Getting there →

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The pubs.

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

Byrne's of Bree

Coal fire, pool table

Village pub

The pub in the village. Open fire, pool room, a beer garden out the back. Music some nights. The kind of place you finish a walk in.

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Stories & lore.

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

Neolithic, on the hill

The Ballybrittas dolmen

A portal tomb at the top of Bree Hill, dated to the Neolithic period - 4000 to 2500 BC. Two large portal stones and a backstone hold up the roof stone; two side stones and a sill stone complete it. Probably the oldest standing structure in Wexford. Nobody knows exactly what it was for: a burial chamber, a boundary marker, a status symbol. The walk to it from the village is about 3 km up through the woods, signposted as the Ballybrittas Dolmen Trail.

The 7th-century monastery

Saint Aidan and Clonmore

There was an early Christian monastery at Clonmore, near Bree, traditionally associated with Saint Aidan - the same Aidan who became the first Bishop of Ferns. The ruins are not much to look at now, but the site is on the heritage map and the parish church in the village (the Church of the Assumption) carries the line forward. The Church of Ireland church at Clonmore was built in 1827.

Born in Bree, early 1400s

Sir James Keating

Sir James Keating, born in Bree in the early 15th century, became Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Ireland and a leading figure in the Irish government of his day. The Hospitallers were a crusading military-religious order with origins in the Holy Land. A small village producing a national-level figure is the kind of thing that turns up more often in rural Ireland than the maps would suggest.

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Things to do outside.

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

Ballybrittas Dolmen Trail The red loop. Up through the woods to the portal tomb at the top. The dolmen itself is about 3 km from the trailhead at the community centre. Moderate.

6.2 km loopdistance

1.5-2 hourstime

Bree Hill Beech Trail The blue loop. Through beech woods on the hill. Same trailhead, longer than the dolmen route, fewer people.

6.9 km loopdistance

2 hourstime

Wilton Trail The green loop, the longest of the three. All three start at the community centre car park.

8.2 km loopdistance

2.5 hourstime

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