WICKLOW, seventeen miles south of Bray, is the first place that wholly escapes the influence of Dublin as you go down the coast. It's an easy-going, ramshackle county town of solidly built houses in bright marine pastels, enlivened by its fine setting: the Vartry River broadens into a lough here before flowing into the Irish Sea, cutting off a narrow strip of land, the Murrough, that's rich in bird life, notably wintering swans and geese. On the south side of the river mouth, a knoll encrusted with some meagre piles of stone constitutes all that's left of Black Castle, one of the fortifications built by the Fitzgeralds in return for lands granted them by Strongbow after the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169, and all but demolished by the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles in 1301. It's possible to walk round Wicklow Head beyond the castle, and find exhilarating views of the open sea and, northward, the weird silhouettes of the Great and Little Sugarloaf mountains, to the sandy beaches that begin at Silver Strand, a couple of miles from town, and stretch all the way down through Brittas Bay to Arklow. There's also sociable, if unglamorous, swimming near the harbour breakwater closer to the centre of town.
Two minor squares, linked by Main Street, form the town's core: Fitzwilliam Square, where you'll find the tourist office; and Market Square, where a spirited memorial to the 1798 rebel Billy Byrne grabs your attention. Byrne, born into a wealthy Catholic family, led rebels from south and central Wicklow during the 1798 Rebellion, but was eventually executed at Gallow's Hill in Wicklow town. Around fifty yards from Market Square on Kilmantin Hill stands Wicklow's Historic Gaol, originally built in 1702 to hold prisoners under the repressive penal laws, and now converted into a tourist attraction (mid-March to Sept daily 10am–6pm, tours every 10min; €5.80), offering a very lively re-creation of the life of the prison, which looks at the part it played in the lives of those involved in the 1798 Rebellion, and those transported from here to the Penal Colonies.
