Actually it's only a tower of what once was a town gate called Bewley Gate, a corruption of the Irish word "buaile", because this was the part of the town where the cows were brought to provide milk for the people of the town.
During the Wexford Rising of 1798 the rebels broke into town through this gate armed with hand-made pikes, but they were slaughtered by the King's troops and by grapeshots. Three balls of one of these grapeshots are laid on the pavement 65 metres southwest from the gate.
As a matter of fact only the southeastern half of the tower survives.
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