The Vikings establish additional longphorts at Wexford, …

Fitz-Stephen, on returning to Wales, had helped Diarmait Mac Murchada to organize a mercenary army of Norman and Welsh soldiers, including Richard de Clare, second Earl of Pembroke, alias Strongbow.

The first Norman knight to land in Ireland had been Richard fitz Godbert de Roche in 1167, but it is not until May 1, 1169, that Robert leads the vanguard of Diarmait Mac Murchada's Cambro-Norman auxiliaries to Ireland, thereby precipitating the Norman invasion of Ireland.

The main invasion party lands near Bannow strand, County Wexford with a force of thirty knights, sixty man-at-arms and three hundred archers.

The next day, Maurice de Prendergast lands at the same bay with ten knights and sixty archers.

This force merges with about five hundred soldiers commanded by Diarmait.

In return for capturing Wexford, MacMurrough grants Fitz-Stephen a share in two cantreds, Bargy and Forth which comprises all the land between Bannow and the town of Wexford.

The cantreds are to be held jointly with Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Lanstephan, his half-brother.

The Siege of Wexford lasts only two days.

The first attack is repulsed at the loss of eighteen Normans and three defenders.

These are believed to have been the only deaths during the siege.

Fitz-Stephen then orders his men to burn all the ships in the town's harbor.

The next morning, the attack on Wexford begins again.

Shortly afterward, the defenders send envoys to Diarmait.

The defenders agree to surrender and renew their allegiance to Diarmait.

It is claimed that they were persuaded to surrender by two bishops who were in the town at the time.

He is accompanied at the siege by Robert de Barry, the eldest son of his half-sister Angharad de Windsor. (Nest then, is the mother of Robert, Maurice and Angharad.)

Within a short time, Leinster has been conquered, and the Viking-established towns of Wexford, …

Wexford has been held by Irish Catholic forces throughout the Irish Confederate Wars.

In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, over fifteen hundred local men had mustered in the town for the rebels.

Lord Mountgarret, the local Commander of the Confederate Catholic regime, had in 1642 ordered Protestants to leave Wexford.

About eighty English Protestant had refugees drowned when the boat evacuating them from Wexford sank.

Wexford is also the base for a fleet of Confederate privateers, who raid English Parliamentary shipping and contribute ten percent of their plunder to the Confederate government based in Kilkenny.

There are by 1649 over forty such vessels operating from the town, many of them originating in Dunkirk, but attracted to Wexford by the prospect of plunder.

English Parliamentary sources report that the privateer's raids are severely disrupting shipping between Dublin, Liverpool and Chester.

The Confederate privateers fight a "dirty war" with English Parliamentarian naval forces.

Parliamentary ships had in 1642 begun throwing captured Wexford sailors overboard with their hands tied.

In reprisal, one hundred to one hundred and seventy English prisoners are kept in Wexford and threatened with death if such killing continues.

The Confederates and Royalists in Ireland in 1648 had signed a treaty joining forces against the English Parliament.

After Cromwell's landing in Ireland in August 1649, therefore, Wexford is a key target for the Parliamentarians, being an important port for the Royalist alliance and a base for the privateers.

Cromwell arrives at Wexford on the 2nd of October 1649 with about six thousand men, eight heavy siege guns and two mortars.

He concentrates his force on the 6th of October on the heights overlooking the southern end of the town.

The town's garrison initially consists of fifteen hundred Confederate soldiers under David Sinnot.

However, the morale of the town is low—perhaps as a result of hearing the fall of Drogheda on September 11—and many of the civilians in Wexford want to surrender.

Sinnot, however, appears to have strung out surrender negotiations with Cromwell and has been steadily reinforced, bringing his garrison strength up to forty-eight hundred men by the 11th of October.

In addition, the main Royalist/Confederate force under James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, is close by at New Ross.

Sinnot insists on several conditions for surrender that Cromwell will not countenance, including the free practice of the Catholic religion, the evacuation of the garrison with their arms and the free passage of the privateer fleet to a friendly port.

Negotiations are reopened when Cromwell's guns blast two breaches in the walls of Wexford castle, opening the prospect of an assault on the town.

However, while negotiations are still proceeding, Stafford, the English Royalist captain of Wexford Castle (part of the town's defenses), surrenders the castle, for reasons that have never been determined.

The troops of the New Model Army, on their own initiative, immediately assault the walls of the town, causing the Confederate troops to flee in panic from their positions.

The Parliamentarians pursue them into the streets of Wexford, killing many of the town's defenders.

Several hundred, including David Sinnot, the town governor, are shot or drowned as they try to cross the river Slaney.

Estimates of the death toll vary. (Cromwell himself thought that over two thousand of the town's defenders had been killed compared with only twenty of his troops.)

Several Catholic priests, including seven Franciscans, are killed by the Roundheads.

Much of the town, including its harbor, is burned and looted.

As many as fifteen hundred civilians are also killed in the sacking. (This figure is difficult to corroborate but most historians accept that many civilians were killed in the chaos surrounding the fall of Wexford.)

The destruction of Wexford is so severe that it cannot be used either as a port or as winter quarters for the Parliamentarian forces.

One Parliamentarian source therefore describes the sack as "incommodious to ourselves".

Cromwell reports that the remaining civilians had "run off" and asked for soldiers to be sent from England to repopulate the town and reopen its port.

Anthony Perry, born in County Down, Ireland to a Protestant family, has lived a prosperous life at Inch near the Wexford/Wicklow border as a gentleman farmer.

He had enlisted in the local yeomanry corps as a second lieutenant responding to the Governments appeal to save the kingdom from radicalism during the height of anti-Jacobin paranoia in the mid-1790s.

However, the atrocities he had witnessed, and may even have participated in, had disturbed him so much that he had taken the United Irish Oath in 1797 and had been made a colonel.

As a United Irish colonel, Perry is responsible for the organization and recruitment of the movement in north Wexford.

A measure of this success is evident by the fact that the brutal coercion campaign unleashed by the Government 1797-98 does not identify Wexford as a United Irish stronghold until barely a month before the eventual outbreak.

The arrival of the counterinsurgency campaign in Wexford, embodied by the dispatch of the dreaded North Cork Militia, ensures that high profile radicals like Perry will be the first to be subjected to arrest and interrogation.

On May 23, Perry is arrested and taken by the North Cork Militia to Gorey for interrogation.

After enduring 48 hours of torture including being pitchcapped, Perry breaks and reveals some names of comrades in the south Wexford movement but little of the north Wexford organization.

Acting upon the information tortured out of him, the authorities releas Perry on May 26 and concentrate mainly on a roundup of the United Irish leaders in Wexford town.

While the authorities concentrate on extracting intelligence about the rebel organization from southern leaders such as Bagenal Harvey, Edward Fitzgerald, and John Henry Colclough, the rebellion erupts rapidly after being sparked off by a clash at The Harrow where rebels under Fr.

John Murphy attack and defeat a small yeoman cavalry force.

A bloody series of raids for arms and attacks on loyalist forces ensues across the northern half of the county, countered by roaming bands of yeomen burning and killing indiscriminately.

Victories at battle of Oulart Hill and Enniscorthy follow, leaving the rebels in total control of the area between Enniscorthy and Gorey by May 29.

Despite his horrific wounds, Perry reports to the rebel camp at Vinegar Hill, Enniscorthy on 29 May and is appointed as second in command to the northern army.

Perry’s command ends in defeat when indiscipline and lack of firearms lead to a bloody defeat by the militia at Ballyminaun Hill.

However, he is then instrumental, together with Father Edward Roche, in planning the devastating counterattack upon an advancing British spearhead at the Battle of Tuberneering on June 4, which destroys half of the British army in North Wexford.

The victory at Tuberneering shocks the military, who withdrew as far as Wicklow town to regroup in safety and give Perry his nickname the "screeching general" from his practice of screaming at the enemy when leading rebel attacks.

The rebels fail to follow up the victory, despite the fact that much of Wicklow county, including Arklow town, is left unoccupied by the British during these critical days.

Part of the reason for this failure to effectively follow up the victory is undoubtedly due the lack of military discipline among rebel forces, but also that the victorious rebels take advantage of their new power to settle old scores by hunting down and taking revenge upon local enemies.

For example, on June 7, Perry leads a raid upon Carnew, scene of the extrajudicial massacre of rebel suspects on May 25, burning most of the town to the ground.

He is also suspected of involvement in the execution of two of his yeomen torturers at the Gorey camp on June 8.

When the decision is finally taken to march on and capture Arklow, Perry's position of leadership is weakened by disagreement over tactics with Fr.

John Murphy, whose units refuse to take part.

The march on Arklow is also a leisurely affair, with Perry having to personally plead with his men to desist from delaying by countless pausing for hurrahs as they pass his house on route.

The disastrous defeat throws the rebels back on the defensive and Perry spends the following days reorganizing the scattered rebel forces and skirmishing with probing British units.

By June 18, the British have built up a force of some 20,000 troops, poised to strike from the north and west.

Rebel forces under Perry withdraw from their base at Mountpleasant to meet the threat and form a large camp at Kilcavan Hill in the north of the county.

The British had not expected a large rebel force opposing them until Enniscorthy is reached and Perry's men threaten to throw the British plans into disarray after holding off several British attacks around Kilcavan Hill on June 19-20.

However, a decision is taken by the Rebel council on June 20 to consolidate all rebel forces in Wexford at the main Vinegar Hill camp for the looming battle, and Perry withdraws as ordered.

Massacres of loyalist prisoners takes place at the Vinegar Hill camp and in Wexford.

After the defeat of a rebel attack at New Ross, between 100 and 200 prisoners are killed, some by gunshot but the majority are burned alive at Scullabogue when the barn in which they were being held captive is set alight.

In Wexford town, on June 20th some 70 loyalist prisoners are marched to the bridge (according to historian James Lydon, first stripped naked) and piked to death.

(Lydon, James F. The making of Ireland: from ancient times to the present pg 274.

Routledge, 1998) The subsequent defeat on June 21 eliminates rebel control of territory in Wexford but leaves at least 10,000 armed men willing to fight on.

Perry manages to withdraw a force of some thousands to the south towards Wexford town and with other leaders such as Garret Byrne, Edward Fitzgerald and Esmonde Kyan fight their way through Wexford reaching Kilcavan Hill again by June 28.

The United Irish Wexford rebels defeat a pursuing cavalry force at Ballyraheen Hill on 2 July.

Perry and the surviving column then leave Wexford and ...

Non-combatant civilians have been murdered by the military, who have also carried out many instances of rape, particularly in County Wexford.

Many individual instances of murder are also unofficially carried out by aggressive local Irish Yeomanry militia units before, during and after the rebellion as their local knowledge leads them to attack suspected rebels.

"Pardoned" rebels are a particular target.

Small pockets of United Irish rebel resistance have also survived in Wexford; the last rebel group under James Corocoran will not be vanquished until February 1804.