The Story of the Arklow Name

The Irish name of Arklow is An tInbhear Mór, meaning “the Great Estuary.” The name describes the place where the River Avoca reaches the sea.

Arklow also has an older Scandinavian connection. The English name is associated with the Norse settlement and has traditionally been interpreted as referring to something like Arnkell's meadow.

Few Wicklow towns have been shaped more completely by their river and harbour.

People have lived around Arklow for thousands of years. The River Avoca provided access inland, while the estuary offered a natural harbour on the Irish Sea. By the second century AD, the settlement was significant enough to have been recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy.

The Vikings later recognised the same advantages.

The Norse used the harbour and established themselves along the coast, leaving their mark on the English name Arklow. When the Normans arrived in the twelfth century, they too understood the strategic importance of the settlement.

In 1185, a grant recorded the castle and village of Arklow in the possession of Theobald Fitzwalter. The Fitzwalters, later associated with the Butler family, developed the town as an Anglo-Norman settlement, with burgage plots, a castle and religious foundations.

But Arklow stood on a frontier.

The Anglo-Norman settlement was repeatedly threatened by Gaelic powers, particularly the MacMurroughs, O'Byrnes and O'Tooles. The town was attacked and burned more than once during the medieval period.

Its position also brought it into the great conflicts of later Irish history. The castle was destroyed during Cromwell's campaign in 1649.

Yet Arklow repeatedly rebuilt itself.

The river and harbour provided the town with a commercial future. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fishing had become central to local life. Arklow's “Fishery” became almost a town within the town, populated by families whose lives revolved around the sea.

The harbour also became important to the industrial economy of Wicklow.

Copper from the Avoca mines was transported downriver for export, linking Arklow with one of the most important mining districts in Ireland. Later, shipbuilding, pottery and manufacturing added further layers to the town's identity.

Arklow became particularly famous for its maritime traditions. Local boatbuilders produced fishing vessels and racing boats, while the pottery industry became another major employer. During the industrial expansion of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large factories provided employment for thousands.

The river has therefore been both the reason for Arklow's existence and the source of much of its history.

The Irish name tells the story perfectly.

An tInbhear Mór — the Great Estuary.

The name describes the landscape, but the landscape created the town. The estuary brought Vikings, Normans, fishermen, merchants, miners, shipbuilders and industrial workers.

Arklow is a town whose history has always flowed with the river.