“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively.” (Joan Didion)

With much discussion currently surrounding the future of The Wooden House, perhaps this is the right moment to look back at the remarkable history of one of Kilmore Quay’s oldest and most important landmarks.

For more than 160 years, The Wooden House has been far more than a hotel or public house. It has welcomed fishermen, sailors, local families and visitors from all around. It has provided shelter after shipwrecks, supplied the village with everyday necessities, and witnessed generations of celebrations, friendships and memories.

Its story is, in many ways, the story of Kilmore Quay itself.

A Shipwreck Gave It Its Name

The origins of The Wooden House lie in one of the most dramatic shipwrecks ever recorded along the Wexford coast.

In April 1860, the ship Neptune was wrecked in Ballyteigue Bay during a violent storm. Only eight crew members survived, reaching safety inside the ship’s timber deckhouse, which washed ashore almost intact on the Burrow (John Power, A Maritime History of County Wexford, Vol.1, 53-54).

The Furlong family, recognizing its structure’s value, purchased it. Local men laboriously transported the massive timber deckhouse to Kilmore Quay, attaching it to the eastern gable of the Furlongs’ premises. This historic building, which had stood in the village since the 18th century, served as both one of the few homes in Kilmore Quay and the village’s only tavern. Decades earlier, during the 1798 Rebellion, at a time when the Furlongs also farmed the Great Saltee, their tavern was raided by Redcoats searching for the United Irishmen leaders, Bagenal Harvey and John Colclough.

The Heart of Village Life

In the late 1860s, Nicholas White of Newtown, Ballyteige, bought the place. Under White’s ownership, The Wooden House (known then as White’s Hotel) became one of the busiest commercial premises in south Wexford: it became a grocery and general merchant’s shop; a coal depot; a pub; a supplier of turf; a place where stout was bottled from timber casks, and one of the village’s most important meeting places. White also introduced a barter system, allowing local people to exchange eggs and butter for groceries, soap and tobacco—an arrangement that reflected the close-knit rural community of the time. His famous lobster dinners attracted visitors who travelled by pony and trap from far beyond Kilmore Quay, making the Wooden House one of the best-known dining establishments along the south Wexford coast.

A Haven for Shipwrecked Sailors

For generations, The Wooden House became a place of refuge for sailors rescued from shipwrecks along one of Ireland’s most dangerous stretches of coastline.Local historian John Power recorded numerous occasions in his books when rescued seamen were brought to the premises to receive food, dry clothing, warmth, and medical assistance.

When ships such as the Idaho (1878) and the Britannic (1881) came to grief in dense fog (John Power, volume 1, p.199-201), White’s hotel became the centre of the relief effort. Once every available bed in the village had been filled, Nicholas White organised horse-drawn carts and carriages to transport survivors onwards to Wexford Town. That tradition continued into the twentieth century. Following the tragic loss of the French fishing vessel Augusta Maurice in 1957, the owner at the time, John Sutton (Ivan Sutton’s father, Kilmore Quay’s renowned artist) ensured that rescued crew members were fed, clothed and cared for.

For over a century, the Wooden House stood not only as a place of hospitality but as a place of humanity.

Generations of Memories

Every generation remembers the Wooden House differently. Some remember the roaring open fires. Others remember celebrations, weddings and Sunday lunches. Older residents remember Sutton’s shed, where coal was stored, porter was bottled and local children gathered to watch “the pictures” when the shed became a makeshift cinema.  Other remember the petrol pumps outside the front door. Later generations remember Billy Roche’s Seafood Bar, with its maritime décor, open fire, pool table and jukebox, making it one of the best-loved pubs in the South East.

Visitors remember it as one of the places that gave Kilmore Quay its unique atmosphere.

These memories are every bit as much part of the history of The Wooden House as the bricks and timber from which it was built.

A Building That Evolved

Like every historic building, the Wooden House changed with each generation.

From the Furlongs family… to Nicholas White… the Sutton family… the Gallaghers… Terry and Marie Frost… Billy Roche… Barry and Carmel Bennett… Each left their own mark on the building. Some expanded it. Some modernised it. Some restored it. Others adapted it to meet changing times.

The old photographs tell their own story. They show changing generations, changing shopfronts, changing cars and changing fashions—but one thing remained remarkably constant. The Wooden House remained part of village life.

 

 

One of the most significant transformations came after 1997, when the building underwent extensive redevelopment and expansion under Cormac Mac Carthaigh’s ownership. The appearance and layout of the original Wooden House changed substantially. While the redevelopment provided modern facilities and increased visitor accommodation, many local people feel it also marked the end of the intimate character and atmosphere that had defined the old Wooden House for generations.

Subsequent owners (Thomas Meyler of Lonarite Ltd. in 2012 and Brendan Garry and his family, through Nando Properties Ltd. and Canbe Hospitality in 2019) continued to develop the site, including the construction of apartments to the rear, now operating as the Wooden House Hotel & Apartments.

Why It Matters Today

Today, the original public house has been closed for almost two years.

A planning notice has recently been displayed indicating an intention to seek permission to convert the former bar, kitchen and public hospitality areas into additional accommodation.

Whatever views people may hold about that proposal, one thing is beyond dispute: the Wooden House is one of Kilmore Quay’s most historically significant buildings. Buildings like The Wooden House are important not simply because they are old. They are important because they hold the collective memory of a community.