Coolgreany, Cúil Ghréine, Co. Wexford

Cúil Ghréine · Co. Wexford

The village the Land War walked through in the summer of 1887.

Coolgreany is a crossroads village in the top corner of Wexford, three kilometres in from the N11 at Inch. There's a GAA pitch, a handball alley, a primary school, two pubs and a shop. On the map it looks like nothing. In the history books it looks like a chapter.

What happened here in 1887 was a small war. The tenants on the Brooke Estate had joined the Plan of Campaign - the nationwide rent strike that came after the Land League - and when the landlord wouldn't budge, the bailiffs came with police escorts and battering rams. About 300 people lost their homes through the summer and autumn. A photographer travelled down from Dublin and produced an album of the evictions that became one of the great propaganda documents of the Land War. The cottages are gone. The fields are still there.

The other thing to know is the mountain to the north. Croghan Kinsella straddles the county line, and in September 1795 someone found gold in the river running off its northern slope. Within weeks there were several hundred people sifting the gravel. The Crown took it over and made a loss. The river is still called the Goldmines River. People still try.

Walk score

Crossroads, GAA pitch, two pubs - fifteen minutes

Coords

52.7686° N, 6.2553° W

01 / 06

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 evictions

300 tenants put out in 1887.

When the Brooke Estate tenants joined the Plan of Campaign, the landlord refused to negotiate. The evictions ran from July 1887 and made the village a national story. Hansard debated it. Photographers documented it. The country didn't forget.

Stories & lore → 02 The border

Three kilometres from the Wicklow line.

Coolgreany sits at the very top of Wexford, in the foothills of Croghan Kinsella. Arklow is closer than Wexford town. The accents have been arguing about which county they live in for a long time.

Getting there → 03 The gold

Croghan Kinsella, 1795.

The mountain north of the village was the site of the only gold rush in Irish history. About 300 women, plus crowds of men and children, sifted the Goldmines River that autumn before the Crown moved in.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

The pubs.

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

The Coolgreany Inn

Country local

Village pub

On the main road through the village. Pints, a fire in winter, the usual mix of locals and people who came in for one and stayed for three. Check it's open before you set off - small village pubs in this country are not a guaranteed thing.

The Topshop Bar

Small, local

Village pub

Main Street. The other half of the village's two-pub allocation. Less polished, more honest. Don't expect a menu.

03 / 06

Stories & lore.

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

1887

The Coolgreany Evictions

The Plan of Campaign was a national rent strike: tenants would pool a reduced rent, offer it to the landlord, and if he refused, withhold rent entirely. The Brooke Estate tenants adopted it in December 1886. The landlord, George Frederick Brooke - a Dublin wine merchant, High Sheriff and Justice of the Peace - refused to negotiate. From July 1887 the evictions began. Bailiffs, Emergency Men, RIC encampments in the fields. Around 300 people were put out of their homes. A Dublin photographer, William Lawrence, sent a man to document it and the resulting Coolgreany Eviction Album became one of the most reproduced images of Irish landlordism. Parliament debated the scenes in late July. The cricket bat that died for Ireland - Pat O'Brien's, broken at one eviction - became a relic of the resistance.

The landlord

The Brooke Estate

The man on the other side of those evictions was George Frederick Brooke of Castleknock, not a member of the old Wexford gentry but a Dublin businessman with property here. He held out for the full rent against a tenancy that had been hit by years of falling agricultural prices. The Plan of Campaign was a strategy of last resort and Coolgreany was where it turned into a set piece. The estate eventually passed under the Land Acts, as most of them did, and the tenants - or their grandchildren - bought the fields they'd been thrown off.

Croghan Kinsella, 1795

The Wicklow gold rush

In early September 1795 it became known that gold could be picked out of the river gravels on the northern slope of Croghan Kinsella, the mountain three miles north of Coolgreany on the Wicklow side. About 300 women, with crowds of men and children, were sifting the stream within weeks - Ireland's only gold rush. The Crown took over in 1796, passed a Goldmines Act in 1797, and over the next few years extracted 944 ounces at a cost greater than the gold was worth. Mining resumed in fits and starts through the 1800s. The river is still called the Goldmines River. Total recorded production since 1795 is around 300 kilos. Hobbyists still pan it.

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Long evenings, lambs in the fields, the Croghan walks dry out. Quiet.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

July is the anniversary month of the evictions. Worth knowing as you walk the fields.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Hawthorn berries, the gold-rush anniversary in mid-September. Best light of the year on the mountain.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days, narrow lanes, not much open in the village after about seven.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Looking for a goldmine to visit

There isn't one. Croghan Kinsella is a hill with a river running off it. The gold is in the gravel, not in a tourist site. Bring a pan if you're serious.

Expecting an eviction museum

There isn't one of those either. The story is in the place and the books - the Tullow Museum across the border has the best curated material.

Coming for the nightlife

Two pubs. One shop. The N11 is fifteen minutes away if you need anything else. That's the whole offer.