School: Ballyvaldon (roll number 10792)
- Location:
- Ballyvaldon, Co. Wexford
- Teacher: Máire, Bean Uí Shúilleabháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0885, Page 252
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Ballyvaldon
- XML Page 252
- XML “The Wreck of the Welcome”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The "Welcome" was abandoned by her crew as she drifted helplessly inshore and their bodies were picked up at the Point of the Raven at the mouth of Wexford Harbour
The ship when she drifted in was boarded by local fishermen and then found several live pigs on board which they slaughtered immediately + brought with them. There was also a parrot on board and one of its sayings was "Kill 'em and ate 'em."
When the coastguards got possession of the ship the parrot was yelling out this phrase over the blood of the slaughter of the pigs. From this the people of Ballyvaldon are known as the "Kill 'ems and ate ''ems
Some "banks" near the spot are still called the "Welcome" banks and there is a field called "The Welcome Field"
- Informant
- John Doyle
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 75
- Occupation
- Seanchaí
- Address
- Ballynadrishoge, Co. Wexford
