memorial stone, Bunclody Although a hamlet already existed here, Bunclody was raised to the status of a
post town in 1577 by
alderman James Barry,
sheriff of Dublin. The town was the scene of the
Battle of Bunclody during the
1798 rebellion. In the 19th century, a small canal was made, drawing water from the Clody river, to provide drinking water for the town. The canal still flows along the middle of the town's main street. During the
Tithe War, 1830–1836, 'Newtownbarry' was the scene of a clash between locals and the officials of the Crown. Locals had become enraged by the seizure of property by the police and army to pay for the Protestant
Episcopal polity. According to
James Connolly, "
twelve peasants were shot and twenty fatally wounded". In 1884, a metal bridge was built across the
River Slaney upstream from today's bridge. It was built of iron from
New Ross, and assembled in the bridge meadow beside where the bridge stood. This bridge was washed away in 1965 by a flood. The remains of the bridge were visible from the bank of the river for some years, until it was removed in 2007, during the building of Bunclody Golf and Fishing Club beside the River Slaney. Notable residents included the travel writer
Mabel Hall-Dare (1847–1929), who grew up in the town before her marriage, in 1877, to the explorer
J. Theodore Bent (1852–1897). At nearby Ballyrankin House lived the mother and daughter writers
Moira O'Neill (1864–1955) and
Molly Keane (1904–1996).
Civil War events The town was a site of three fatalities during the
Irish Civil War. The first was James Roche, a member of the Anti-Treaty IRA, who died in a car crash on 4 July 1922. The second person killed was Lieutenant Ignatius "Nacey" Redmond, a local member of
Sinn Féin, who held the post of secretary. He had overseen pro-treaty meetings in Easter 1922 in the town, in opposition to the position of his comrades, and resigned his post in Sinn Féin in August 1922 before joining the pro-treaty
Free State army. On 2 October 1922, he was killed approximately two and a half miles from Bunclody on the old Bunclody-Kiltealy road. The third was 29 year old Thomas Doyle, a World War I veteran from Enniscorthy, who later worked as a clerical officer with the Free State army. He was shot dead at Ryland's Cross outside the town when a Free State army vehicle was ambushed on 1 December 1922. ==Demography==