Wexford Harbour
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Wexford Harbour is the natural harbour at the mouth of the River Slaney. The estuary originally was about ten miles wide at its widest point, with large mud flats on both sides. These were known as the North Slob and the South Slob from the Irish word slab, meaning mud. The Vikings, when they founded the city of Wexford, named it Waes Fjord, meaning 'inlet of the mudflats', and the modern name has evolved from this.
In the 19th century, dykes were built and pumping systems installed to drain the slobs, producing fine agricultural land below sea level in polders similar to those in the Netherlands. The size of the harbour was reduced considerably.
What is left suffers from serious silt problems, as the current of the river constantly shifts the mud and sand around in the harbour. Islands of sand can appear in the harbour and then disappear over the course of a few weeks. As a result, the harbour is not suitable for large ships and is used only for fishing trawlers.
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