Discover Wicklow Town
The county town on the Irish Sea, with a working harbour, a gaol on the hill and two dead lighthouses on the head
What's On
Upcoming events and things happening in Wicklow Town
National Heritage Week in Wicklow Town
RecurringMostly free heritage events across the town in the second half of August, listed on the national Heritage Week programme.
Wicklow Regatta Festival
RecurringA fortnight of harbour races, raft and duck races, buskers, singing pubs, workshops and a fireworks finish. Mostly free.
Wicklow RNLI Lifeboat Station Open Day
RecurringThe East Pier lifeboat station opens to the public, usually on a July Sunday, with both boats open, rescue demonstrations and lifejacket clinics. Free.
Round Ireland Yacht Race
RecurringA 704-nautical-mile offshore race starting and finishing at Wicklow Sailing Club, run every second year since 1980.
Wicklow Town Right Now
Wicklow is an open east-coast town with the Irish Sea on one side and nothing to break the wind. It is usually drier than the Wicklow Mountains inland, but a moderate easterly on the Murrough or on the Glen Beach clifftop feels a great deal colder than the forecast temperature, so bring a windproof layer even in summer.
🚂 Commuter from Wicklow Town
Northbound and southbound trains
Wicklow Town station. Updates every minute
A working county town at the mouth of the Vartry
Wicklow Town grew around one of the few natural harbours on a long, exposed stretch of the Irish Sea coast. The Norse used it from around the middle of the ninth century, which is where the English name comes from, and the Irish name, Cill Mhantain, church of the toothless one, records a much older story about a follower of St Patrick who lost his teeth in a hostile welcome on Travailahawk beach and returned to found a church anyway. Maurice FitzGerald built the Black Castle on the rock above the harbour mouth after the Norman arrival, a Franciscan friary was founded in 1252, and the town later became the county town and the seat of Wicklow County Council, whose offices are still here at Whitegates. The harbour was rebuilt through the 1880s and 1900s and it still works: timber, aggregate and a small fishing fleet share the quays with the sailing club and the lifeboat.
The town's best-known son is Captain Robert Charles Halpin, born here in 1836 above his family's dockside tavern at the bridge, who commanded Brunel's Great Eastern and laid something in the order of 26,000 miles of submarine telegraph cable before retiring to build Tinakilly House out the Rathnew road. There is a monument to him in the town and a Celtic cross on his grave, and his name is on a cafe at the bridge and a brewery on South Quay. The other name people arrive knowing is Billy Byrne, executed after the 1798 rebellion and commemorated by the statue in Market Square. Between the two of them you have most of what Wicklow tells you about itself: the sea, and the rebellion.
Where To Eat
From fine dining seafood to fish and chips by the harbour
Blue Seafood & Bistro
A harbour-front seafood restaurant on the South Quay, the town's main destination dining room. Book by phone, especially at weekends.
The Bridge Tavern
The town's main all-rounder at the bridge over the Vartry, with a snug, a riverside terrace, food all day and rooms upstairs.
Halpin's Bridge Cafe & Bistro
A family-run cafe and bistro at the bridge, known for its all-day breakfast, with indoor and outdoor seating and takeaway.