New Ross

A medieval walled port on the Barrow, once busier than Waterford. The Kennedy family left the townland of Dunganstown nearby in the Famine years, and John F. Kennedy came back to it in June 1963 — 'the best four days of my life', he called that visit.

St Abbán founded a monastery here in the 6th century, in what is now Irishtown. The town grew around the bridge that William Marshal and his wife Isabel de Clare, Strongbow's daughter, built over the Barrow — New Ross is the town of the new bridge — and the Chronicles of Ross record Isabel "building a lovely city on the banks of the Barrow". St Mary's Abbey was built in 1210, and the town had a royal charter by about 1279.

In 1643 New Ross held out against the Duke of Ormond, who fought Thomas Preston's Confederate army near the town, and in 1649 Cromwell took it. The Tholsel, the town hall, was finished about 1750. The Battle of New Ross, in 1798, was one of the bloodiest of the rebellion.

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

• St Mullin's · round tower · 10 km
• Coolhill Castle · castle · 8 km
• Tellarought Castle · castle · 8 km
• Rathumney Castle · castle · 12 km

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

• St Mullin’s · Moling founded this in the early 7th century and is said to have dug the mill race himself. The Book of Mulling, written here in the 8th century, carries the earliest known plan of an Irish monastery — four crosses inside the wall and eight outside.
• Reginald’s Tower · The oldest civic building in Ireland, and the only urban monument in the country still carrying a Norse name. Strongbow married Diarmait Mac Murchada’s daughter Aoife here — the marriage that tied Leinster to the Normans.
• St Mullin’s — the death of Mad Sweeney · Cursed by Rónán to wander as a bird-man and to die by a spear, Suibhne ends here in Moling’s care, drinking milk from a hollow in cow dung. Moling’s herdsman, believing a rumour about him, put the spear in — and the curse was complete.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.