Clonmines

Clonmines is a civil parish and townland in the Bannow Bay region of County Wexford, the site of "the finest example in Ireland of a deserted medieval borough". It is situated in the barony of Shelburne, southwest of Wellingtonbridge on the northwest shore of Bannow Bay. The parish of Clonmines contains the townland of the same name and the smaller townland of Arklow, with respective areas of 1,258 acres (509 ha) and 127 acres (51 ha).

There is evidence of a Norse-Gaelic settlement in Bannow in general and Clonmines in particular. In the early thirteenth century, after the Norman conquest of Ireland, a borough and port was established at Clonmines by William Marshal. Colfer suggests that Marshal chose the site in spite of its shallow harbour and poor hinterland, to offer a sheltered winter port alternative to New Ross. After the partition of Marshal's Lordship of Leinster around 1249, Clonmines was a detached manor of the liberty of Kildare.

It was a notable town with a provost and bailiff in the fourteenth century, and still considered a town in the sixteenth. In 1552, king Edward VI funded a scheme to mine silver in nearby Barrystown, which was abandoned after five months. The name "Clonmines" predates these mines; its origin is uncertain.Herbert F. Hore in 1859 suggested the Irish Cluainmain "Ecclesiastical retreat on the plains".

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