County: Wexford Site name: LADY’S ISLAND
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0153
Author: Joanna Wren
Site type: Castle - tower house, Gatehouse and Bawn
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 710614m, N 607739m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.210311, -6.381438
Lady’s Island is said to have been a pilgrimage centre from the 15th century, when it was inhabited by a community of Augustinian canons. It housed a complex consisting of an outer and inner curtain-wall, each with associated towers, with a gatehouse attached to the inner one. The walls were built across the isthmus separating the mainland from the church and pilgrimage site.
All that survives of the outer curtain-wall is a mural tower, which has partly collapsed. The tower and gatehouse on the inner wall are 70m to the south-east. There is entry through an arch in the gatehouse to the inner bawn area, where the church and graveyard are located. To the west, the curtain wall survives for a maximum of 13m, and to the east it continues, intermittently, for 43m to the lakeshore.
The developer proposed extensions and improvement work to an existing toilet block at the site. This lies just inside the bawn wall of the inner tower-house. On 7 April 2000 seven test-trenches were excavated. These contained deposits of flood, sand and animal bone of an indeterminate date.
The Mile Post, Waterford
