3 Best Sights in Wexford Town, The Southeast

A 35-acre, open-air, living-history museum beside the River Slaney, this is one of Ireland's most successful and enjoyable family attractions. In about 90 minutes, a guide takes you through 9,000 years of Irish history—from the first evidence of humans on this island, at around 7000 BC, to the Norman settlements of the mid-12th century. Full-scale replicas of typical dwellings illustrate the changes in beliefs and lifestyles. Highlights include a prehistoric homestead, a crannóg (lake dwelling), an early Christian rath (fortified farmstead), a horizontal water mill, a Viking longhouse, and a Norman castle. There are also examples of pre-Christian burial sites and a stone circle. Most of the exhibits are "inhabited" by students in appropriate historic dress who will answer questions. The riverside site includes several nature trails and a falconry center. There's a family restaurant and you can even stay a night in a medieval ring fort.

While Oliver Cromwell made a bonfire of the original 13th-century Friary, this rebuilt 19th-century landmark has a ceiling worth noting for its fine, locally crafted stucco work and a relic and wax effigy of St. Adjutor—a young martyr slain by his own father.

Once the scene of bull baiting, a cruel medieval sport that was popular among the Norman nobility, this arena was sad witness to other bloody crimes. In 1649, Cromwell's soldiers massacred 300 panic-stricken townspeople who had gathered here to pray as the army stormed their town. The memory of this heartless leader has remained a dark folk legacy for centuries and is only now beginning to fade.