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Wexford County
Irish: Contae Loch Garman Motto: Exemplar Hiberniae (An example to Ireland)
One of a series of Irish District tartans designed by Polly Wittering. These are not 'officially sanctioned' District tartans but have apparently proved popular and no doubt in time will be accepted as genuine District rather than Fashion tartans.
The English name for the county comes from Norse Veisafjorour. It is located in the province of Leinster and is named after the town. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Ui Cheinnselaig, whose capital was Ferns. The county was one of the earliest to be christianised in the early 5th century.
Later, from 819, Vikings plundered many Christian sites in the county. Wexford town became a Viking settlement near the end of the 9th century. Wexford was the site of the invasion of Ireland by the Normans in 1169 at the behest of Diarmuid MacMurrough, King of Ui Cheinnselaig and King of Leinster, which led to the subsequent colonisation of the country by the Anglo-Normans.
The native Irish began to regain some of their former territories in the 14th century, especially in the north of the county. Under Henry VIII the great religious houses were dissolved, 1536-41. A rebellion in 1641 was latterly stamped out by Oliver Cromwell in 1649; confiscating lands and giving these to Cromwell’s soldiers. At Duncannon in the south-west of the county, James II, after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, embarked for Kinsale and then on to exile in France. John F Kennedy’s ancestral home is at Dunganstown near New Ross.
Choose from one of the Wexford County tartans listed below:
