Youmightbe apirate
IWAS reading about a time when Wexford was a Pirate Town. Around 1640 it was, some boyos came from Flanders and Spain, and started up a bit of business with local seafarers. Our location is what attracted their attention. From Wexford, they could nip over to England and do a bit of sacking and be back before breakfast. Any auld English ship that happened to be passing by was also sacked. They weren’t real pirates of course; they were called ‘Confederate Privateers,’ sounds like the name of a showband from Kilkenny.
But Flanders and Spain? Wonder what they thought of boiled potatoes and buttermilk? I don’t know what they thought of the Wexford cuisine at the time, but I have a good idea of what Wexicans thought of them.
The lads across the water weren’t best pleased about the sacking thing. Taking note of which direction the perpetrators came from, they got out their own sacks and headed straight towards Wexford in the year 1649. However, they weren’t looking for something to put in the sacks, they wished to flatten the town and everyone in it, like a sack.
Anything that wasn’t flattened was burned, apparently the few that managed to stay alive, were very annoyed about the whole affair. Of course Cromwell was involved.
Interesting ha? So if you are from Wexford, you might have a bit of an exotic pirate in you. Do you feel drawn towards the water? Or like the odd bandana? Are you a good dancer? Do you have brown eyes? Does the rain get on your nerves? Do you like Ronaldo? Do you talk fast? Like sardines? Just sayin.
The Viking’s had been here well before that of course. They started the place in 800 – it seems that no one was actually from here; it was just a rainy slate sliding down to the river. But the Vikings saw it as a place with great potential, then they liked a nice Fjord didn’t they. And as I said, there wasn’t much interest locally. So they named it Veisafjoror, meaning, inlet of the mud flats, an irresistable image, don’t you think?
When I look at Wexford harbour from the other side where the mussel boats park, I’m more inclined to think of Flanders than Scandanavia. The many masts along the quay, tall ones, small ones, the occasional yacht, or sail boat. The exposed backsides of shops and houses piling up above the merchants on the quay. The rising hills, church spires, the opera house, far off collegeiate walls. More Flanderisan than Fjoird.
Bee de way, the Confederate Privateers gave some of the proceeds to the Confederation in Kilkenny, so they weren’t just mercenaries, there was a cause. You should always have a cause, even to this day we are told that, if we are trying to raise a few bob.
I have been all over Ireland a hundred times. As a teenager I played five nights a week in a professional band while sharing a bedsitter with Larry Kirwan in Rathmines (me coming in at five in the morning, he going out at quarter to nine) but that’s besides the point.
Everywhere I went, I compared it to Wexford, I liked the towns with quays best, and came to the conclusion that Wexford people are different than most. Jim Sheridan calls us ‘ The tough Norman stock’. And I haven’t even mentioned the Normans yet.
Viking, Flanderian, Spanish, Norman and Celtic stock, that’s us. And it’s not finished yet.
Lee Chin comes to mind. I can’t wait for the Polish and Romanian hurlers.