Dungarvan, County Waterford
Photograph: User:Dungarvan · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
County Waterford · Munster

Dungarvan

Dún Garbhán

'Garbhán's fort' — a seventh-century saint

The story

A harbour town between the Comeraghs and the sea, with an Anglo-Norman castle on the quay and the Gaeltacht of An Rinn just across the bay — one of the few Irish-speaking districts left in the province of Munster.

The history of Dungarvan

Standing stones, ringforts and bullauns surround Dungarvan, and there was Hiberno-Norse settlement here by at least the 10th century; several sources suggest the town is Viking in origin. King John ordered the castle by the harbour, whose shell keep, unusual in Ireland, dates to about 1209. Thomas FitzMaurice FitzGerald founded an Augustinian abbey in the 13th century. The town was incorporated in the 15th century and, unlike Waterford and Duncannon, surrendered to Cromwell without a siege. The remains of a woolly mammoth were found in the town in 1859, and the Burgery ambush of 1921 took place nearby.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Dungarvan ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castles and monuments within 15 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

Worth seeing nearby
  • St Declan's Well, Ardmore · Declan brought Christianity to the Déisi before Patrick came; his cliff-top well, oratory and 'stone that floated from Wales' are still visited on 24 July.
  • The Comeraghs — Crotty’s rock · William Crotty the highwayman kept to these mountains, and a lake and a crag still carry his name. He was hanged in Waterford in 1742.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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