placenamesWoodenbridge
An Droichead Adhmaid
Woodenbridge’s coaching inn, the Volunteer parade of 1914 and a later war memorial connect local places with wider Irish history.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- An Droichead Adhmaid · Irish · main form
- Woodenbridge · English · main form
Place & story
The coaching inn
Woodenbridge Hotel traces its beginnings to a coaching house licensed in 1608. Its own history records later operation as the Putland Arms under the Bowland family and a long association with travellers passing through the valley. Modern expansion continued that hospitality role: additional rooms were built in 1996, followed by the forty-bedroom Woodenbridge Lodge beside the Aughrim River in 2004. [2]
Redmond addresses the Volunteers
On 20 September 1914 John Redmond addressed a Volunteer parade at Woodenbridge, urging Irishmen to support the British war effort beyond Ireland’s shores. Century Ireland’s research places the gathering in a field near the railway station, with about 500 Volunteers and more than 3,000 spectators. The speech made a small Wicklow village the setting for a major declaration of Redmond’s wartime policy. [3]
Remembering Wicklow’s war dead
Woodenbridge’s First World War Memorial Park opened on 18 September 2014. Michael Pegum’s survey records fifteen polished granite pillars bearing names, arranged in a riverside setting. The entrance memorial includes granite from an old railway bridge at Avoca. Created a century after the war began, the park provides a county-wide place of remembrance within the village associated with Redmond’s speech. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Wicklow
- Barony
- Arklow
- Civil parish
- Castlemacadam
- Within
- Garnagowlan
- Coordinates
- 52.83086, -6.23416 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 128858 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Woodenbridge. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Woodenbridge Hotel: our history · Woodenbridge Hotel and Lodge
- Redmond urges Irish Volunteers to join the British Army · Century Ireland, Boston College and RTÉ
- Woodenbridge World War I Memorial Park, inventory914, p.1 · Michael Pegum, Irish War Memorials
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2020-01-16. How this page was prepared.