Piercetown, Baile an Phiarsaigh, Co. Wexford

Baile an Phiarsaigh · Co. Wexford

A parish village south of Wexford town, two spellings, one GAA club, and a Pilgrim Way running through.

Piercetown is a small parish village about six kilometres south of Wexford town, on the road that runs out toward Murrintown and the south coast. The first thing to know is the spelling: Wikipedia titles the article Piercetown, the Diocese of Ferns and the local pharmacy and parish website all use Piercestown, and the civil parish is something else again - Kildavin. None of this matters until you start typing the place into a phone. The Irish name, Baile an Phiarsaigh, is the only version that has not been argued over.

The village itself is small and recently built up - a primary school, St Martin's Catholic church with its 1908 granite belfry, a Londis shop, a pharmacy, a GAA park, a tennis club, a housing estate called The Ramblings. Most of what people drive into Piercetown for is the GAA pitch on a Sunday or the church on a holy day. Everything else is ten minutes back into Wexford. The 390 bus runs to town a few times a day; otherwise it is a car parish, like most of south Wexford.

The village's two surprises are both off-stage. The first is St Martin's GAA - a parish club whose pitch sits on Johnstown Castle estate land, given over in 1962, and which has won four county senior hurling titles since 1999. The second is that the Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way, the nine-day walking route from Ferns to St Davids in Wales, uses Piercetown as the overnight between Stage 3 and Stage 4. Walkers come in off the road from Oilgate and Johnstown Castle and head out the next morning for Our Lady's Island. The village sees them and then doesn't.

Population

Small village - a few hundred

Walk score

Church, school, shop, GAA pitch - five minutes end to end

Coords

52.2944° N, 6.5161° 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 spelling

Piercetown or Piercestown - both are right.

Wikipedia titles the place Piercetown. The local pharmacy, the parish website and most road signs use Piercestown. The civil parish is Kildavin. The Irish name, Baile an Phiarsaigh, settles nothing - it just means the Pierce family's town.

About the village → 02 St Martin's

1828 barn-type church with a 1908 belfry.

The parish church was built in 1828-29 on a central site for six united parishes - high, rectangular, with a large gallery. The cut-granite belfry was added in 1908. The pre-Reformation church on the old Kildavin site at the Deerpark was dedicated to St Davin.

Stories & lore → 03 St Martin's GAA

Maroon and white, pitch on the castle estate.

Founded in 1932 in the parish. The club only secured a central pitch in 1962 when Johnstown Castle estate handed over land; the clubhouse went up in 1963. First county senior hurling title in 1999. Senior football in 2013. More hurling since.

Stories & lore →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

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

Maroon and white, born twice

St Martin's GAA

The current club was founded in 1932, but a first St Martin's existed in Murrintown from 1912 - black and white, lost the 1913 county junior football final, and a year later changed both jersey and name to Michael Dwyers. The 1932 revival took the same saint's name and a different colour scheme, maroon and white, and spent thirty years renting fields off whoever would give them one. In 1962 the Johnstown Castle estate handed over a piece of ground in the centre of the parish; the clubhouse followed in 1963. The first county senior hurling title came in October 1999, captained by Mark Murphy, beating Rathnure in the final. They did it again in 2008, won their first senior football in 2013, and added senior hurling titles in 2017 and 2019. The club office address is Piercestown; the pitch is on castle land; the players come from Murrintown too. The parish is the unit, not the village.

Barn-type, 1828, central by design

St Martin's Church

St Martin's was built in 1828-29 - Catholic Emancipation was a year away, and the site at Pollsallagh was chosen because it sat central to six united parishes that had been amalgamated under one priest. The building is a 'barn-type' Catholic church: high, rectangular, plain, with a large gallery for the numbers it had to seat. The cut-granite belfry that gives the church its silhouette went up later, in 1908. The pre-Reformation parish church it replaced was dedicated to St Davin, and stood in the old cemetery at the Deerpark - the place that gave the civil parish its name, Kildavin. The dedication shifted to St Martin of Tours when the new church went up. The grave names in the older cemetery, where they survive, are still worth a slow walk.

Stage 3 ends here. Stage 4 begins here.

The Pilgrim Way

The Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way is a nine-day walking route - opened in the last few years - tracing the journey of St Aidan from Ferns to study with St David in Wales. The third stage starts at St David's Well in Oilgate, runs in past Carrigfoyle Quarry and through the Johnstown Castle estate, and finishes in Piercetown. The fourth stage leaves Piercetown for Our Lady's Island, where Christian pilgrimage has been documented for at least 1,500 years and pagan worship long before that. The route is the only reason a particular kind of walker stops here at all. The village does not have a pilgrim hostel; most people stay in Wexford town and taxi out to pick the trail up again.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Quiet. The Pilgrim Way is at its best in May before the grass goes long. Hedges out, lambs in the fields around Johnstown.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings. GAA championship through July and August - check the St Martin's fixtures if you want a reason to stand on a sideline.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

County hurling and football finals fall around now - half the parish drives to Wexford Park, half to Innovate Wexford Park. The village empties for the afternoon.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Not much in the village to draw you out in the dark. Mass times shift and the shop closes early. Fine as a base for Wexford town, otherwise skip.

◐ 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.

Treating Piercetown as a stop in its own right

Five minutes' walk and you have seen the village. Come for the GAA pitch, the church or the Pilgrim Way leg, and pair it with Wexford town, Johnstown Castle or Our Lady's Island. Do not plan a day around the main street.

Looking for a pub in the village

There isn't one worth recommending. The Londis does the off-licence end of the evening; for a sit-down pint you drive back into Wexford or out to Murrintown.

Getting there.

By car

Wexford town to Piercetown is 10 minutes south on the R733 - the Rosslare road - then a short turn west on the local road. From Rosslare Harbour it is 15 minutes northwest. Johnstown Castle is signposted from the same junction.

By bus

Bus route 390 runs between Wexford town and Piercetown a few times a day (as of October 2025). Useful for school runs and shoppers; not useful for visitors with a flight to catch.

By train

Nearest station is Wexford (O'Hanrahan) on the Dublin-Rosslare line. Then taxi or local bus.

By air

Dublin Airport is 2 hours by car. Waterford Airport is an hour but has no scheduled commercial service at the moment.