Survey Data
Reg No
15503028
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Monument
In Use As
Monument
Date
1900 - 1910
Coordinates
304849, 121974
Date Recorded
16/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding monument, designed 1902-3; cast 1903; dated 1903; exhibited 1904; unveiled 1905, on a square plan on drag edged cut-limestone plinth. Street fronted on concrete brick cobbled square.
Appraisal
A monument signed (1903) by Oliver Sheppard RHA (1865-1941) representing an important component of the early twentieth-century built heritage of Wexford (cf. 15603143). NOTE: A foundation stone taken from Three Rocks, the site of the Battle of Three Rocks (30th May 1798), was laid (1st November 1898) by Reverend Patrick Kavanagh (1838-1918) in the presence of Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde MP (1862-1935), Peter Ffrench MP (1844-1929) and John Edward Redmond MP (1856-1918). The choice of Bull Ring was symbolic as the site where 'five Franciscan priests two Franciscan Brothers and numerous citizens of [the] town were slaughtered by Oliver Cromwell on the 11th day of October 1649' and where in 1798 'an open-air armaments factory [made and repaired] pikes and other weapons for the insurgents'.