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CAMPILE

CO. WEXFORD · IE

Campile
Ceann Poill, Co. Wexford

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 02 / 05

Ceann Poill · Co. Wexford

The Luftwaffe bombed it in 1940. A Cistercian abbey sits two fields away.

Campile is a small village on the back road from New Ross down toward the Hook, the kind of place a coach driver would slow down for and a local would not bother to mention. It has a SuperValu, a church, a couple of pubs, a closed railway station and a Cistercian abbey in the next field. None of that prepares you for what happened here on a Monday morning in August 1940 - when a German bomber, in a neutral country, three years into a European war Ireland was trying very hard to stay out of, came in low over the creamery and dropped four bombs. Three women working the canteen were killed. They were 30, 26 and 16 years old. Two of them were sisters. The Luftwaffe later paid compensation. No one has ever fully explained why it happened.

Two kilometres west, in a field off the road to Arthurstown, sits Dunbrody Abbey - one of the finest Cistercian ruins in the south-east. Hervey de Montmorency, an uncle of Strongbow and one of the original Norman invaders, founded it in the 1170s, gave the land to the monks of Buildwas in Shropshire, then retired into the community himself. The church is roofless but otherwise more or less complete: a long nave, transepts with their stone night-stair, a square crossing tower added in the 15th century. The OPW runs it in season. The visitor centre across the lane runs a hedge maze, which sounds like a gimmick and is actually quite good.

Five kilometres south, in a stone farmyard at Dunganstown, the Kennedy family still farms the land their ancestor left in 1848. The Kennedy Homestead is a small, thoughtful museum on the original site - opened by Jean Kennedy Smith in 1990, still in family hands. The JFK Arboretum is another few minutes south again. Campile itself does not trade on any of this. The village gets on with its day. But you can use it as your base for the lot - abbey, homestead, arboretum, the Hook beyond - and most of your evenings will end up back here at the bar, which is the most sensible arrangement.

Population

~700

Walk score

Main street in five minutes

Founded

Village grew up around the creamery and the railway, 19th c.

Coords

52.2922° N, 6.9486° W

01 / 07

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 bombing

Hit by the Luftwaffe in a neutral country.

On 26 August 1940 a Heinkel He 111 dropped four bombs on the Shelburne Co-op creamery. Three young women were killed. Ireland was neutral. The site is now the SuperValu on Main Street.

Stories & lore → 02 Dunbrody Abbey

A Cistercian ruin in a field beside the road.

Founded in the 1170s by Hervey de Montmorency, uncle of Strongbow. Roofless, the nave intact, the crossing tower still standing. Two kilometres west of the village.

Walks & outings → 03 Kennedy country

JFK's people are five kilometres south.

Patrick Kennedy walked out of Dunganstown in 1848. The Kennedy Homestead and the JFK Arboretum are both a ten-minute drive from the village.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

Roches Bar

Local, no fuss

Village pub

On the Main Street. A working village pub of the old school - pints, the match on the telly, conversation that knows the room. The kind of place where a stranger gets a slow nod and then the same welcome as everyone else.

Mernagh's

Weekend trade

Pub & lounge

Up the road from the SuperValu. Busier at weekends, quieter midweek. Decent pint, a fire when the weather asks for one, and the Kennedy/Dunbrody tourist trade pulls in on summer evenings.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

A neutral country, three women dead

The 1940 bombing

At about 1.30pm on Monday 26 August 1940, a Heinkel He 111 of the Luftwaffe - likely off course from a raid on Britain - flew low over Campile and dropped four bombs on the Shelburne Co-operative Creamery. Three of the bombs hit the creamery. One destroyed the canteen, where the staff were having lunch. Three young women working there were killed: Mary Ellen Kent, aged 30; her sister Catherine Kent, 26; and Kitty Hickey, 16. The Irish government protested. Berlin eventually accepted responsibility and paid compensation in 1943. No definitive explanation for the attack has ever been given - the most plausible theories are navigation error or the misidentification of the creamery silo as a British military target. The creamery was rebuilt. It became Avonmore, then Glanbia, and finally the SuperValu that stands on Main Street today. A small memorial plaque marks the spot.

Strongbow's uncle and the Cistercians

Dunbrody Abbey

Hervey de Montmorency came over with Strongbow in 1170 and was given the lands of Dunbrody as part of the Norman settlement of Leinster. Around 1175 he granted the site to the Cistercian monks of Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, who sent a founding community. The abbey was formally established by 1182, and Hervey himself eventually retired into it, dying as a monk there in 1205. The buildings you see today - the cruciform church with its square 15th-century crossing tower, the chapter house, the cloister fragments - are mostly 13th-century. It survived dissolution in 1536 and stood as a roofless shell ever after. The OPW took it on as a national monument in the 1960s. Open in summer; access otherwise from the lane.

The cooper who left from Dunganstown

Kennedy country

Five kilometres south of Campile, in a small stone farmhouse at Dunganstown, a 26-year-old cooper called Patrick Kennedy made up his mind in 1848 to leave. He walked the eight kilometres to the harbour at New Ross and took ship for Boston. He worked barrels in East Boston for the rest of his short life - he died there in 1858. His great-grandson came back to the same farmyard on 27 June 1963, drank tea with the cousins, and was assassinated in Dallas five months later. His sister Jean Kennedy Smith opened the homestead as a museum in 1990. It is still run by Patrick's descendants. The JFK Arboretum a few minutes south - 623 acres, 4,500 species - was opened by de Valera in 1968 as the Irish state's memorial.

A station that the trains forgot

The railway

Campile station opened in 1906 on the Rosslare-to-Waterford line - part of the Great Southern & Western network connecting the new Rosslare Europort to the south. Passenger services ran until 18 September 2010, when CIÉ closed the whole Rosslare-to-Waterford service after years of running near-empty. The line is officially mothballed: the track is still in place, the platform still there, the station building still standing. There are intermittent proposals to reopen it for freight or for a south Wexford greenway. For now it is the quietest part of the village. Walk down to the platform some evening and you can see why a station was put here in the first place - the line curves through a cutting and on toward the Barrow estuary, and the silence is doing the work of timetables.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Dunbrody Abbey Walk west out of the village on the R733 for about a kilometre and a half. The abbey sits in a field on the south side of the road, signposted. Visitor centre and hedge maze across the way. Allow 45 minutes for the ruin itself; longer if the centre is open.

2 km return from villagedistance

1 hour with the abbeytime

Kennedy Homestead loop Drive south on the R733 for five minutes. The homestead is at Dunganstown, signposted. Combine with the JFK Arboretum a few kilometres further south - together they need two to three hours and they are the only things on the road, so don't rush.

10 km drivedistance

Half daytime

Barrow estuary towpath From the village, the lanes down to the river at Great Island and Cheekpoint give you the Barrow at its widest - the combined Suir-Nore-Barrow estuary opening toward the harbour. Not a marked trail, no signage, but quiet roads and big views. Bring an OS map.

5 km each waydistance

2-3 hourstime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Dunbrody Abbey opens for the season around May. Hedgerows in full noise. Kennedy Homestead runs longer hours from April.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The abbey, the homestead, the arboretum and the Hook are all on the same loop and all open. Long evenings. Book the homestead online.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Arboretum turns. The Hook quietens down. The village is back to itself. The bombing anniversary falls on 26 August, the end of summer.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Dunbrody Abbey closed to interior access. Homestead runs reduced hours; check the day. The pubs stay open. Not much else to do unless the weather turns kind.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Treating Campile as a destination in itself

It is a hinge village, not a sight. The reasons to come - abbey, homestead, arboretum, Hook - are all five to fifteen minutes away. Stop in the village for the pub and the pint; do not plan a half day inside it.

Hunting for visible bomb damage at the SuperValu

The creamery was rebuilt and rebuilt again. The shop on the site today is a modern SuperValu. A small plaque marks the event; that is the whole of it. The story is the point, not the brickwork.

Trying to take the train

There is no train. The line through Campile has been closed to passengers since 2010 and there is no realistic prospect of reopening soon. Drive, or take the Local Link bus, or come by car from New Ross.

Getting there.

By car

Campile is on the R733, the south Wexford road from New Ross down to the Hook. New Ross is 15 minutes north. Wexford town is 40 minutes east. Waterford City is 25 minutes via the Ballyhack-Passage East ferry, or 30 minutes by road through New Ross.

By bus

Local Link runs sporadic services between New Ross and the Hook villages, stopping at Campile. Check current timetables - frequency is rural-Ireland thin. Bus Éireann routes do not call here directly; pick them up in New Ross.

By train

No passenger service. The Rosslare-Waterford line closed to passengers in 2010 and remains mothballed. Nearest working station is Waterford (Plunkett), 30 minutes by car.

By air

Dublin (DUB) is 2 hours by road. Cork (ORK) is 2 hours. Waterford Airport (WAT) is 30 minutes via the ferry but has very limited flights.