Enniscorthy Market House (), also known as The County Council and Urban Council Offices (), is a municipal building in the Market Square,

Enniscorthy Enniscorthy () is the second-largest town in County Wexford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is located on the picturesque River Slaney and in close proximity to the Blackstairs Mountains and Ireland's longest beach, Curracloe. The Plac ...

County Wexford County Wexford () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. Named after the town of Wexford, it was ba ...

, Ireland. The building, which was used as the local market house through much of its life, is now used as a civic building.

History

The building was commissioned as a market house by the

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

, John Wallop, 3rd Earl of Portsmouth, whose ancestors had been the principal landowners in the area since the late 16th century. It was designed in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built in brick with a

cement render Cement render or cement plaster is the application of a mortar mix of sand and cement, (optionally lime) and water to brick, concrete, stone, or mud brick. It is often textured, colored, or painted after application. It is generally used on ...

finish and was completed in the late 18th century. The original design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto the Market Square. It was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. There were five round-headed openings with

voussoir A voussoir ( UK: ; US: ) is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault.“Voussoir, N., Pronunciation.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7553486115. Acces ...

s and keystones on the ground floor, and five

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s with

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s and

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s on the first floor. The two-storey structure had

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

s at the corners and was surmounted by a hipped roof. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor, which was used for concerts and public meetings from an early stage. During the

battle of Enniscorthy The Battle of Enniscorthy was a land battle fought on 28 May 1798, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. An overwhelming force of rebels assailed the town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, which was defended only by a 300-strong garrison supported b ...

, in May 1798, the rebel forces set fire to much of the town causing panic among local people: a loyalist, Thomas Rigley, was burned to death in the building. Meanwhile, a guard was mounted over a stockpile of arms and ammunition which was being stored there. The local Protestant minister, Richard Radcliffe, recorded that the assembly room was being used as a school by 1813. In 1908, an additional floor was added to the building, to a design by Thomas Aloysius Burke Lowey, to accommodate the local technical school. The building was further adapted, in 1973, for municipal use as the offices of Enniscorthy Urban District Council. The building continued to be used as the offices of the urban district council until 2002, and then as the offices of the successor town council, but ceased to be the local seat of government in 2014, when the council was dissolved and administration of the town was amalgamated with

Wexford County Council Wexford County Council () is the local authority of County Wexford, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housing and community, roads and transportation, urban planning an ...

in accordance with the

Local Government Reform Act 2014 The Local Government Reform Act 2014 (No. 1) is an Act of Parliament, act of the Oireachtas which provided for a major restructuring of local government in the Republic of Ireland, local government in Ireland with effect from the 2014 Irish loca ...

. An extensive programme of refurbishment works, involving the creation of additional public space, was undertaken by Tom O'Brien Construction to a design by Aughey O'Flaherty Architects and completed in November 2020.

References

{{City and town halls in Ireland, state=collapsed City and town halls in the Republic of Ireland Enniscorthy