Cullenstown, Baile Uí Choileáin, Co. Wexford

Baile Uí Choileáin · Co. Wexford

A long sandy strand, a shell-covered cottage, and not much else.

Cullenstown is barely a village - a townland in the civil parish of Bannow, a strand, a handful of houses, a stretch of the Bannow Drive between Carrig-on-Bannow and Duncormick. You can drive through it without noticing. Most people do. The ones who stop are here for the beach, or for the cottage covered in shells, and that's about the size of it.

This is old Bargy barony, one of the two south-Wexford pockets - Forth and Bargy - where Yola was spoken into the 1880s. Yola was a frozen Middle-English brought over by the Normans and Welsh archers who landed at Bannow and never really left. Geographic isolation kept it alive for seven centuries. Then the roads opened up and it was gone in a generation. There's no plaque here for it. The fields are the plaque.

Population

Very small - a strand, a few houses, a townland

Walk score

A beach, a road, and the cottage. Ten minutes if you don't stop.

Coords

52.2050° N, 6.7100° 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 strand

A long, flat, mostly empty beach.

Cullenstown Strand holds a Green Coast Award - the badge for less-developed beaches kept clean by local volunteers. Parking, a toilet, and miles of sand. In winter it's just you and the dog walkers.

Walks & outings → 02 The Shell Cottage

A thatched house, every wall covered in shells.

Kevin Ffrench, a retired sailor, spent more than thirty years until his death in 2003 sticking shells from the local strand onto the walls of his 19th-century cottage. Geometric panels, scenes, a dolphin on the last gable.

Stories & lore → 03 Bannow Bay

Where the Normans came ashore in 1169.

The bay just up the road is where Robert FitzStephen landed on 1 May 1169 with the first Norman force. Eight hundred and fifty-odd years on, it's a quiet inlet of mudflats and oystercatchers. The history is the heaviest thing about it.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

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

Kevin Ffrench's life's work

The Shell Cottage

Kevin Ffrench (1921-2003) was a sailor who came home, settled into a 19th-century thatched cottage at Cullenstown, and started picking shells off the strand. He kept picking them up for thirty-odd years. The cottage's exterior walls became a slow-grown mosaic - lozenges, circles, geometric panels, scenes pulled from local life. A dolphin he was working on the year he died is still on the gable. It's a private home - his granddaughter lives there - but you can see it from the road. Storms have done their work; a restoration fund has been raised. Look, don't touch. Don't go past the gate.

Keeragh and the geese

The strand and the islands

A mile and a half offshore from the strand lie the two small Keeragh Islands - a Natural Heritage Area, a cormorant breeding colony, and the winter quarters of barnacle geese that fly down each October from Greenland and leave again in April. You can't land on them. You can watch them from the beach with a pair of binoculars and a flask of something hot.

The lost language of Forth and Bargy

Yola country

South Wexford was, until the late 19th century, the only place outside England where a pre-modern English dialect survived continuously. The Normans landed at Bannow in 1169 and the Welsh archers and English settlers who came with them stayed. Hemmed in by the bay and the bog, their speech drifted but never died - until improved roads and national schooling in the 1800s walked it out the door. The last fluent speakers were gone by the 1880s. The placenames around Cullenstown - Tacumshane, Bargy, Bannow itself - are the survivors.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

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

Cullenstown Strand Flat, broad, backed by low dunes. Cleanest at low tide. There's a small car park, a toilet block, and bins. No café, no shop - bring your own coffee. Good for bass fishing off the beach in season. Dogs welcome.

About 2 km of usable sanddistance

However long you wanttime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Empty beach, big skies, the barnacle geese still on the bay until early April.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The one season the strand fills up - Wexford families, day-trippers from inland. Still never crowded by seaside standards.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Storms rolling in, the geese arriving back from Greenland. The locals' favourite quarter.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

You will have the beach to yourself. There is nowhere indoors to warm up. Plan accordingly.

◐ 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 village centre

There isn't one. Cullenstown is a strand and a scatter of houses. The nearest pub, shop and chipper are in Carrig-on-Bannow or Duncormick, a few minutes by car.

Knocking on the door of the Shell Cottage

It's a private home. The owner's family lives there. View it from the road, take your photos, and move on.