Feature field. We discovered that Sparrow was a surname of ship owners back in the 1830s, Hussey says. Hussey brings me out into their back garden to show me where, more than a century ago, a house was built against the other side of their wall. The medieval wall thus became a party wall. It towers over their house. They started to build the Wexford wall in 1250, Hussey says. He shows me a map of where the wall structure originally was. Its a rough semicircle, with the southern end running down to the harbour, and the northern end stopping short of where the Wexford quays now are. You could only come in to the place by water back then, he adds. They started where they built the castle [the southern end]. And because it was a very busy port, they decided this place was worth walling. So they built a wall the whole way around the town, and it took 50-plus years to build it. This would have been a huge development for the people who lived here. This new thing called a wall. As it developed, people must have been commenting, especially the people who lived outside the wall. People back then must have been wondering if the wall of Wexford was like what we think now of the childrens hospital in Dublin: is it never-ending? On the map of the wall Hussey shows me, some towers are round and some are square. He draws my attention to the fact different styles are alongside each other. If you ask a schoolchild in Wexford what is the difference between the round walls and the square walls, its this, he says. This wall was being built from 1250 to 1300, which would be the Crusade era. So people went to the crusades, and they discovered, because they were attacking towns, it is far more difficult to put a ladder up against a round tower than a square tower. So they made a mental note, I suppose, that when we get back to Wexford to finish the building of our wall, any new towers will be round. And theres one beside the Wexford Arts Centre that is round, and the next one after it is square, and thereafter they are all square. During the time Hussey was manager at Whites, the hotel used to host a monthly meeting of the Wexford Historical Society. I would see people coming into the meetings. You would see about a dozen people. These would be mainly elderly very elderly people with an interest in local history, he says. Scroll forward to the current day: the same Wexford Historical Society now has, on occasion, about 200 members attending their meetings. And they have had a couple of incidences where the lectures have had to be duplicated because of the sheer demand. There is now a huge upsurge in local history. The attendees, he says, are both older and younger people. Wally ONeill owns Red Books bookshop in St Peters Square, and a sec- Who owns the town walls? I dont know. Its always been a grey area over the years ond, Red Books Underground, at Eclectic Avenue. Between the two, he tells me his stock is about a quarter of a million books. We are talking at the St Peters Square location, where books fill what look to me like innumerable rooms, from floor to ceiling, in any and every genre you could possibly think of. Its more bohemian up here, in St Peters Square, even though it is so close to the other part of the town, he says. ONeill also stocks a selection of Wexford history books. Per population we have more history written about us than anywhere else in Ireland. People are still buying books, but footfall is down a lot. Who owns the town walls? I dont know. Its always been a grey area over the years. In 1835, four of the remaining gates were taken down to facilitate expansion, so the challenge of trying to live life among a medieval layout was troubling Wexford residents 200 years ago, as it is today. Like the Tschans, ONeill is unsure who has official responsibility for the walls, or even if parts of them are under the aegis of different entities, depending on whether or not they are in public or private locations. ONeill is sure of one thing, though. There was a lot of stuff taken down that shouldnt have been, even 20 years ago. It was people wanting to build or open up gardens or have more car parking space. You cant do that now, he says decisively and with relief. HowIrelandswalled townscametobe Walledtownsaretownsthathave,orhad, defensivewalls.InIreland,theearliest examplesoftheseareassociatedwith VikingorHiberno-Norsesettlements. Later,theAnglo-Normanconquestof Irelandbroughtwithitawaveof town-building,startinginthesoutheast andexpandingoutwards. ThenewAnglo-Normantownswere oftenbuiltatornearexistingmonastic settlementsoronthesiteofconquered Gaelicstrongholds,andthemajorityof themwerewalled.Thiswasasadefensivemeasure,toprotectthetowns inhabitantsfromattack,butalsoasa meansofcontrollingthetradeofgoods intoandoutofthetown.Taxesandtariffs wereappliedatthetowngates. TheearliesttownwallsinIreland wereacombinationofearthenditches andtimberpalisadefences.Bythe13th and14thcenturies,thesehadmostly beenreplacedbystonewalls,oftenwith towersandwallwalksandusuallywith severalgates,givingaccesstothetown fromdifferentdirections. Today,itislargelythestonewalls,or remnantsofthem,thatsurvive.Thetowns featuredinthisseriesareallmembersof theIrishWalledTownsNetwork. Thenetworkwasfoundedbythe HeritageCouncilin2005andisdelivered inpartnershipwithlocalauthoritiesand communitygroupsin33membertowns acrosstheisland.Thenetworksupports theconservationoftownwallsandthe regenerationoftowncentresinits membertownsbyprovidingtraining, fundingandaforumforknowledge exchange. EimearOConnellistheIrishWalledTowns Networkprogrammemanager THE IRISH TIMES Weekend Saturday, August 1, 2026 11 DavidSedarisontheseriousbusinessofcomedy.Page8 WalledtownsofIreland:RositaBolandvisitsWexford.Page10 PatrickFreyne:GlenHansardwasIrelandsbandleader.Page5 WEEKEND THE IRISH TIMES Saturday, August 1st, 2026 A WOUND IS HEALED Afterdecadesofheartbreakandnearmisses, Mayofinallyhasitsmomentinthesun By 2 Cover story A HOUSE OF PAIN NO MORE MayosAll-Irelandtriumphreleased75yearsof pent-upemotioninoneunforgettableafternoon ByKeithDuggan M acHale Park in Castlebar has always been best suited to those Saturday-night matches in winter, when the season is young and the promise uncontained. An ideal Cover story meme, the jokes came thick and fast. Through all that, Mayo footballers and supporters never shied away from speaking about it, nor returning to All-Ireland finals. Maybe we make too much of the football, Fr Leo Morahan, the former county board executive, said back in 2007. Mayo has the 4 Cover story 2004, when he was beginning his sec- ond term as Mayo manager. By September, he had the county back in an All-Ireland final, when Kerry defeated his young team. Like most GAA counties, the network of names and connections within Mayo football are impossibly dense: you could fill the People GLEN HANSARD WAS OUR NATIONAL BARD TheFramesfrontmanwasIrelandsbandleader, anditfeltlikehewouldbedoingthejobfor alongtime ByPatrickFreyne I n the 1990s, I wasnt convinced by The Frames. They felt a bit mainstream. A bit major label. I was a young idiot. Later, a friend convinced me that I 6 Music THE PIANIST WHO PLAYS WITH ONE HAND ONLY Freya Terris is the first pianist to pass their Grade 8 piano exam playing solely with their left hand ByJohnOConnor L ike countless other young musicians, Freya Terris discovered her love of music at the piano stool. Yet her journey has been anyt People 7 Fearkeptmefrom doingwhatIreally wantedtodoorsay Q&ARevJanetBroderick The Donegal-based priest on childhood games with her brother actor Matthew Broderick, how people react when she preaches sermons, and who could play her in a biopic Howagreeableareyou? I think life has made me agreeable 8 Interview I DONT LIKE EXTREMISTS. BUT I FIND THEM THRILLING AS CHARACTERS TheUSwriterandhumouristtalksabouttheseriousbusinessofbeingfunny onthepageandathislivereadings ByPatrickFreyne WEEKEND INTERVIEW DAVID SEDARIS A few days after I interview David Sedaris, I receive a thank-you postcard fe Interview 9 I just tried to get through my days [at school] without being found out as gay. Im 69, so no one even really imagined then that anyone could be anything that awful back then DavidSedaris: Idontknowhow tobuyaplane ticket.Idontopen anymailthat doesntlooklike fanmail. Photograph: Leonardo 10 Feature HISTORY EMBRACES US EVERY DAY IN WEXFORD In the first of a four-part series on Irelands walled towns, we visit Wexford, where history is quite literally in peoples back gardens ByRositaBoland I f Billy Colfer talked to you about history, youd sit up and listen, Paul Walsh tells me. W Feature field. We discovered that Sparrow was a surname of ship owners back in the 1830s, Hussey says. Hussey brings me out into their back garden to show me where, more than a century ago, a house was built against the other side of their wall. The medieval wall thus became a party wall. It towers 12 Photo essay Formedtotacklethe siltingissueintheriver Liffey,thereservenow extendstotheentirety ofthebay WILD AT HEART Photographs: DaraMacDónaill andEndaODowd Words: EndaODowd O f the 797 Unesco biosphere reserves across 147 countries, Dublin Bay is the only one to include a national capital Photo essay DublinsNorth BullIsland,partof theDublinBay Unescobiosphere reserve,isnow hometo180 differentspeciesof bird.However, conservationists warnthat,asworks tostopcoastal erosionareerected alongthecoastline, theirlong-term impactonthe ecologyand landscapemaybe difficulttopredict. Photographs: 14 Feature TWINS PEAK WERE PROBABLY MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER Whetheritsthehighsofalwayshavingcompanyor thelowsofsensingtheotherspain,thebestpartof beingatwinisneverbeingstuckforafriend ByJenHogan I relands birth rate may be falling, but the incidence of twin births continues to rise, with al Feature 15 Its sometimes fun and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff had a friend beside you. In fact, the twins only really went their separate ways when they went to college and that was a major shock, Emma says. Rebecca says there are lots of upsides to being a twin, but the T 16 Essay he vintage front page shows a street full of Dublin holidaymakers smiling at the camera, sitting on the kerb, waiting for the bus in the sun. But these early queues soon dissipated. Bank holiday spoiled by weather, announces the reusable headline. The citys thoroughfares were WEEKEND E Essay 17 Governments might fancy deploying bank holidays to foster cohesion and goodwill, but that doesnt mean everybody has to play along crashing out of the Fifa World Cup was that Friday, July 24th, became the bank holiday that never was. Would Keir Starmers mooted last act have applied across 18 Feature BE LIKE JOHN LENNON AND BUY AN IRISH ISLAND Four islands for sale off Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Galway, with bidding starting at 299,000 ByJessicaDoyle W hen you attract screaming fans everywhere you go, what do you do to get some peace and quiet? You buy an island, of course. Tha People 19 SARAH MOSS Teenage dieting made me an expert in mental arithmetic I bofin. It is suitable for grazing and features two natural freshwater lakes. The island measures 1.2km by 0.4km and rises to a maximum height of 63.3m above sea level. It is a Special Protection Area under the EU Bird 20 Environment TOMAÍ Ó CONGHAILE Our beautiful, troubled planet needs a skilled reconciler T he World Cup may be over but the fallout continues: Trumps unwanted interventions; Germanys early exit; football not coming home; Argentinas post-final petulance. Not to mention, of course, that banner. Environment 21 British navy, spent several days imprisoned in the Tower of London on corruption charges, and died of smallpox before reaching 40. Initially, a strait running between the two main islands was named after him and, by 1765, the Falkland Islands had become the English name for the entire 22 Obituaries FIRST WOMAN DIRECTOR OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION, LIBRARIAN AND ACADEMIC Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon Born: January 28th, 1943 Died: July 23rd, 2026 Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon, who has died peacefully aged 83 at Blackrock Hospice, Dublin, was a leading light in that remarkable generat Obituaries 23 RENOWNED ORNITHOLOGIST AND COMIC ACTOR WHO STARRED IN THE GOODIES Bill Oddie BillOddiewasamemberofcomedy trioTheGoodies,whoseanarchicTV sketchshowairedinthe1970sand 1980s.Photograph:IanGavan/Getty Born: July 7th, 1941 Died: July 25th, 2026 Bill Oddie, who has died aged 85, was a mul 24 Last word DAVID McWILLIAMS ThefirstvictimofAI? Theeconomy W e are in an era of great technological advances, or so say all the tech bros who are championing not just AI, but a whole host of technological innovations from finance and healthcare to supply chain management and communications. In