Indicated — Wexford

In 1621 a charter was granted by the Corporation of Wexford Town to the ‘Fraternity or Guild of Butchers’ which allowed them to regulate the trade but bound them to provide two displays of bull baiting annually, on the feast of St Bartholomew (24th August) and Hallantyde (All Hallow’s) at the beginning of November, the hides to be presented to the mayor. The practice continued in Wexford town down to 1798 when regulations against public assemblies brought it to an end, although it may have ceased by 1770. Apart from the spectacle it provided, the baiting or stressing of animals was thought to tenderise the meat, and baiting may have been practiced before the grant of the charter. (Hore 1906, vol. 5, 236-8) When Cromwell’s forces broke into the town on 11th October 1649 they met great resistance when they came to the marketplace, and in Cromwell’s own words in a letter to the Speaker of the English Parliament ‘our forces brake them, and then put all to the sword that came their way’ (ibid. 294). According to a petition of the townsmen in 1660 this included women and children (ibid. 330). A fountain was installed in the centre of the square in the 1790s by the Marquis of Ely, and it was known as Fountains Square until the fountain was moved to the Cornmarket c. 1800, when it reverted to the original name. The Bullring is a rectangular square (dims c. 30m N-S; c. 20m E-W) at the centre of the medieval town, with four entry points, Main Street extending off it to the N and S. It would normally function as a market, and was surrounded by buildings, one of which on the E side was a court house, known as the Tholsell. The twin Victorian market houses, built c. 1870, now occupies this side of the square.