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INCH

CO. WEXFORD · IE

Inch
An Inis, Co. Wexford

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

An Inis · Co. Wexford

A north Wexford crossroads that shares a name with two more famous places.

Inch is a small north Wexford settlement on the R772, about six kilometres north of Gorey on the way to Arklow. It is a parish more than a village - a church, a graveyard, a school, a hall, and a thin scatter of houses along the road and the lanes off it. If you blink at the wrong moment you go through it without noticing. People do, every day.

The name is what catches the eye on a map. Inch - An Inis, the island. There is no island. The old Irish word covered any patch of higher, drier ground sitting up out of marsh or wet land, and that is what Inch was: a raised platform in a flat, soft landscape, dry enough to build a church on and bury people in. The land has been drained and farmed for centuries, so the island is gone in any visible sense, but the name kept its job.

Population

A scatter of houses around a crossroads - well under 200

Walk score

The crossroads, the church, the road north - five minutes

Founded

Medieval parish; the name simply means "the island" - high ground in old marshland

Coords

52.7333° N, 6.2333° W

01 / 05

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 name

"An Inis" - the island.

There is no island here and no sea. The name is the older Irish sense of inis - a patch of dry, raised ground in marshy country. Stand at the crossroads and look around: that is the island.

Stories & lore → 02 The road

R772 between Gorey and Arklow.

Inch sits on the old coast road north of Gorey. Since the M11 motorway opened past Gorey in 2007 the R772 is the quieter alternative - the long way to Arklow, ten minutes slower and a hundred times more interesting.

Getting there → 03 The parish

A church, a graveyard, a hall.

Inch is a Catholic parish in the Ferns diocese, paired with Kilanerin further north. The church and the graveyard are the centre of the place. Beyond that there is countryside, and beyond that there is more countryside.

What it's like →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Kerry, Donegal, Wexford

The three Inches

There are at least three places called Inch in Ireland and the Wexford one is by far the smallest. Inch Strand in County Kerry is a three-mile beach on the Dingle Peninsula that was used in Ryan's Daughter and is the Inch most search engines will send you to. Inch Island in County Donegal is a real island in Lough Swilly, joined to the mainland by a causeway. The Wexford Inch is a crossroads on a back road north of Gorey. Same word, three very different places. If a satnav sent you to a beach, you are in the wrong county.

Inch and Kilanerin

The parish

Inch is half of the Catholic parish of Inch and Kilanerin in the diocese of Ferns - the other half is the village of Kilanerin a few miles to the north. The Church of the Assumption at Inch and St Brigid's at Kilanerin share a parish priest between them. Small rural parishes like this were paired and re-paired through the twentieth century as priest numbers fell. The parish boundary is older than the road.

Before the motorway

The old road

For most of the twentieth century the Dublin-to-Wexford traffic went up and down this road. The N11 was the artery. Inch was one of dozens of villages and crossroads it passed through. When the M11 motorway extension past Gorey opened in 2007 the traffic lifted off the R772 almost overnight and the old road went quiet. It is the better drive now - Arklow to Gorey along the coast side, through Inch, in maybe fifteen minutes instead of twelve on the motorway.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Hedgerows out, lambs in the fields, the road south to Gorey at its prettiest.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

A pleasant detour off the M11 if you are heading for Courtown or the north Wexford beaches.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Quiet. The R772 in the turn of the leaves is a better drive than the motorway.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

There is nothing here for a winter visitor. Pass through; do not stop.

◐ Mind yourself

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Thinking you have arrived at Inch Strand

You have not. Inch Strand is in County Kerry, about 350 kilometres south-west of here, on the Dingle Peninsula. If you came for the beach in Ryan's Daughter, you are several hours wrong.

Treating Inch as a destination

It isn't. There is no pub on the crossroads, no shop worth a stop, no visitor attraction. Inch is a place you pass through on the way to somewhere else, and that is the honest description. The interest is in the name and the road, not the village.

Getting there.

By car

On the R772 between Gorey (6km south) and Arklow (about 15km north). Off junction 23 of the M11 at Gorey, then north on the old road.

By bus

No regular village service. Bus Éireann and Wexford Bus on the Dublin-Wexford route stop at Gorey, which is the practical drop-off. Local Link rural services pass through the area on limited days - check timetables.

By train

Nearest station is Gorey on the Dublin-Rosslare line, about ten minutes by car. Direct trains to Dublin Connolly.

By air

Dublin Airport is roughly 1h 15m up the M11. Rosslare Europort is about an hour south.