A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Guaire· Irish · main form · validated name
Gorey· English · main form
Place & story
An eighteenth-century civic form
Gorey Market House has a symmetrical two-storey façade, a central pedimented projection and an octagonal cupola. Granite below and red brick above give it a distinctive colour contrast. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records conflicting construction dates of 1709 and 1790.[2]
Uses that changed its meaning
The inventory records the building’s use as a makeshift prison during the 1798 rebellion and cites accounts of the prisoners’ harsh treatment. Later sources describe a courthouse, a parochial school and, by the early twentieth-century censuses, a town hall. These successive functions complicate a purely decorative reading of the building. A market house could accommodate commerce and civic pride while also becoming a place of confinement, education or administration at different moments in the town’s history.[2]
People & connections
Paul Funge and artistic life
The painter Paul Funge grew up in a Gorey family whose drapery business was on Main Street. The Dictionary of Irish Biography records his actual birth in Dublin in 1944, a useful distinction from accounts that simply call him Gorey-born. His father Thomas was a prominent local businessman and town commissioner.[3]
Funge studied at the National College of Art and later received an Italian government scholarship to Florence. His career combined painting, teaching and cultural organisation; the Kenny Gallery records his role among the founders of Dublin’s Project Arts Centre.[3][4]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
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Gorey — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
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Gorey Legal Town, Wexford — Legal town, CSO 2006 report — census population
Gorey Environs, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: town environs only
3,714people · 2006
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
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Gorey Environs, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 2006 report — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
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Gorey Legal Town, Wexford — Legal town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Gorey Environs, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 1996 report
1991–1996: town environs only
1,789people · 1996
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
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Gorey Environs, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 1996 report — census population
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
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Gorey, Wexford — Legal town, CSO 1986 report — census population
Gorey, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 1986 report
1981–1986: town environs only
1,439people · 1986
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
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Gorey, Wexford — Town environs only, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Gorey, Wexford — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement
Published census settlement populations
9,822people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
View population figures
Gorey, Wexford — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement — census population
Christ Church, Gorey, County Wexford illustration: based on a Christ Church, Gorey by Dean Molyneaux. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
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