Take a trip to the sunny south east
Malcolm Rogers travels to the coastal town of Wexford to sample the singing, the seafood and the scenery.
 Ireland’s internationally famous opera town also has its Wexford Slobs. Now these aren’t the teenage lads who restlessly inhabit most Irish owns after the pubs close. The Slobs are an equally famous bird-watching area on the coast hard by the city. Not quite as internationally famous as either the Slobs or the Opera Festival, but getting there all the same, are the ancient medieval town’s seafood restaurants. In fact this corner of south-east Ireland is just about an ideal place to visit if you happen to be a bird-spotting opera buff who likes his oysters and knows his onions as far as history is concerned. Any Wexford guide accordingly divides itself conveniently into natural sections:
The Town
 Wexford is a handsome town, ideal for dandering about. Stroll down to Wexford Quays, where you can see a harbour boasting more than a thousand years of history. The town has progressed from its early days as a Norse trading port through to the Anglo Saxon takeover, the sacking of the town by Cromwell and on to the Pikemen of the 1798 Rebellion.
Not far from the harbour stands the West Gate Tower, part of the five original entrances to the walled settlement. Modern-day commercialism has set in here, and for a sum of euro you can now watch a potted history of the town. Soon they’ll boast a telly programme “Who wants to be a Shelmalier?”
Probably better off to continue your stroll round the medieval town.
Towards the end of the harbour boardwalk, at Crescent Quay, stands the imposing statue of Commodore John Barry, a native of the town who started out as a cabin boy, became an American naval hero during the War of Independence and subsequently earned fame as “the father of the American navy”.
The Pubs
A Viking tribe apparently once raided England because they had run out of beer. Don’t know if that’s why the first raiding party came to Wexford, but there’s no doubt the place is well served with watering holes. There are pubs with traditional music, pubs with jazz, upscale pubs with first class nosh — the famous Macken’s pub even doubles up as an undertaker’s.
Each year at festival time, these places are at full throttle competing for the Singing, Swinging Pubs of Wexford competition. Judges assess the quality of singing and musicianship in each establishment. As you can imagine, competition is fierce and the main beneficiary is you, the customer.
Bars worthy of note include Centenary Stores, Charlotte Street and The Thomas Moore Tavern, Cornmarket. But really, there’s no shortage. Brush up on a few Wexford songs, and you might even pick up one of the best-visitor awards.
The Restaurants
There’s a wide range of restaurants in Wexford, and seeing as we’ll be talking opera it would be churlish not to mention La Dolce Vita, Westgate, serving real pasta and authentic pesto.
Seafood is naturally a speciality — seabass with olive oil and tagliatelle would be my personal recommendation. Not badly priced for this quality of restaurant with main courses beginning around the €20 mark.
One of the traditional dining delights is to take The Galley River Cruising Restaurant. Now this is a boat trip which one of Wexford’s most famous sons, Arctic explorer Robert McClure (he found the North West Passage) would have probably turned his nose up at, because it consists of a gentle cruise up the river stuffing your face with food, turning round and returning with a post-prandial brandy in your fist while contemplating the soporifically beautiful riverside landscape (Tel: 00 353 51 421723).
The Day Trips
 Day trips from Wexford are varied. You can go bird-watching in the afore-mentioned Wexford Slobs — you don’t need to be an anorak, but you’ll definitely need to wear one, because the easterlies fairly whip in off the Irish Sea. Wexford is conveniently situated at the very bottom of the country, and the Slobs, aka Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, is located on the N25 south of Wexford town.
You’ll not even need a pair of binoculars — half the world’s population of Greenland white-fronted geese stop off here to dine.
To the south of the town, the remote Hook lighthouse on the Hook Peninsula dates from the early 13th century, probably the oldest operational lighthouse in Ireland or Britain, and one of the oldest in the world.
A visitors’ centre boasts first class displays tracing its history — it seems the world’s first beam team was composed of monks. Nobody is quite sure who first vowed to take Ireland by Hook or by Crooke — contrary to popular belief it probably wasn’t Cromwell — but the phrase is a reference to the settlement of Crooke on the Waterford side of the Barrow estuary and Hook Head on the other. But by hook or by crook try to visit this shining example of Irish technology.
The Opera
 Originally the idea of the novelist Sir Compton Mackenzie, this event is now one of the world’s most glamorous and esoteric opera festivals. Three (usually obscure) operas are staged in the town’s Theatre Royal in the autumn, this year from October 17 to November 3.
Opera Note: Don’t expect light classicals. It is part of Wexford’s business to revive operas which other festivals neglect — Prokofiev’s The Gambler, or Bizet’s Les Pecheurs des Perles for example.
If, by some chance you think you recognise the title of an opera, it won’t be the one you’re thinking of, but an abstruse piece of the same name — La Bohème, not by Puccini, but another production of the same name by a 13th century Swedish monk.
This year’s festival features Maria di Rohan by Gaetano Donizetti, which, according to the advance publicity, “hints at the direction the composer’s career might have taken if it hadn’t been cut short by syphilis.” Too much information, there, I suspect.
The other two major productions at this year’s festival are Pénélope by Gabriel Fauré to a libretto by René Fauchois, and Susannah by Carlisle Floyd.
If you can’t get tickets for the Theatre Royal, not to worry. Alongside the operas a huge programme of fringe events takes place incorporating everything from traditional sessions to opera-slanted street theatre.
Shorter works of music, theatre, concerts, recitals, talks, cabarets and fireworks and of course parties are also held throughout the day and late into the night.
The Conclusions
Wexford? Great place to go. Wish you’d been with me. |
