Woodenbridge ()Placenames Database of Ireland: Woodenbridge
/ref> is a small village in County Wicklow,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It lies between

Arklow Arklow (; ; , ) is a town in County Wicklow on the southeast coast of Ireland. The town is overlooked by Ballymoyle Hill. It was founded by the Vikings in the ninth century. Arklow was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the 1798 re ...

and Avoca, at the meeting of the '' Avoca'', '' Aughrim'' and ''Goldmine'' rivers. The village is located at the junction of the R747 and R752 roads. The R747 crosses the ''Aughrim'' on the stone bridge which is still called "Wooden Bridge".

Name

The village was historically called ''Garrynagowlan, Garragowlan'' and ''Garnagowlan'' () after the

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

it occupies.

Amenities

Woodenbridge Golf Course is located here, as are two hotels. The entire golf course was flooded to a depth of several feet during Hurricane Charley in August 1986, which also destroyed a number of bridges over the

River Avoca The Avoca ( ga, Abhainn Abhóca) is a river in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is contained completely within the county. Its length is 35 miles (56.3 km). The Avoca starts life as two rivers, the Avonmore () and the Avonbeg (). These jo ...

and its tributaries.

Woodenbridge Hotel

The Woodenbridge Hotel & Lodge was established in 1608. Future Taoiseach and President

Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of govern ...

and Sinéad de Valera stayed at the hotel on their honeymoon in 1910. IMG WoodenbridgeHotel1612

Transport

The remains of an abandoned railway station on the mainline railway between

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

and

Rosslare Harbour The village of Rosslare Harbour (), also known as Ballygeary, grew up to serve the needs of the harbour of the same name (now called Rosslare Europort), first developed in 1906 by the Great Western Railway and the Great Southern and Western Rai ...

can be seen beside the golf course. Woodenbridge railway station opened on 22 May 1865 and finally closed on 30 March 1964. Bus Éireann route 133 serves Woodenbridge four times a day on weekdays and twice on Sundays linking it to

, Avoca, Rathdrum,

Wicklow Wicklow ( ; ga, Cill Mhantáin , meaning 'church of the toothless one'; non, Víkingaló) is the county town of County Wicklow in Ireland. It is located south of Dublin on the east coast of the island. According to the 2016 census, it has a ...

and Dublin.

First World War

At Woodenbridge on 24 September 1914,

John Redmond John Edward Redmond (1 September 1856 – 6 March 1918) was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He was best known as leader of the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) from ...

, the leader of the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nation ...

, addressed a muster of the

Irish Volunteers The Irish Volunteers ( ga, Óglaigh na hÉireann), sometimes called the Irish Volunteer Force or Irish Volunteer Army, was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists and republicans. It was ostensibly formed in respon ...

, exhorting them to join the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. This precipitated a split between the majority "

National Volunteers The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I. Origins The Nati ...

" who supported Redmond and of whom many enlisted, and the rump "Irish Volunteers", influenced by the

Irish Republican Brotherhood The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; ) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924.McGee, p. 15. Its counterpart in the United States ...

, which led the Easter Rising and evolved into the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

References