Hredburna, old Gaelic for marshy creek, began as a modest creek side hamlet first settled by early woodcutters in 1187 who prized the marshy banks for their workable timber. Over time, traders traveling between Forthy and Wrexford found it a convenient midway rest. The local Inn, The Fat Goose, provided rooms for travellers. The village slowly grew around a small timber chapel. By the mid-seventeenth century it had gained modest renown for its dye-workers, who used the river’s mineral-rich reeds to produce a distinctive green tint. Hredburna remained a quiet rural parish until the ministry of Rev. Anthony Arrowsmith. His sermons, more admired by himself than by his hearers, somehow became the village’s most infamous curiosity.

The bubonic plague reached Hredburna in 1666, carried along the trading route from Stopford only weeks after outbreaks were reported in the larger towns. The village, with its marshy riverbanks and close-packed cottages, proved tragically susceptible. Within two months, nearly three-quarters of its inhabitants had died or fled. Rev. Arrowsmith, certain he alone was divinely preserved for “extraordinary usefulness,” refused all precautions, held daily gatherings, and unintentionally hastened the contagion’s spread. By winter, Hredburna was deserted and slowly became lost to time.