Fraser's Wexford and Wexford Today
When Robert Fraser published his survey in 1807, Ireland was officially a dominion of the British Empire. He was describing Wexford for an audience in England. He wanted to inspire them to develop it further as a British settlement.
It is interesting that Fraser refers to some of the inhabitants of Forth and Bargy as colonists, even though most had been in Wexford for at least 200 years before he got there. This shows that the settlers still had their own distinctive culture, even after two centuries.
Modern Wexford is a prosperous county in the Republic of Ireland. There are many similarities between the Wexford of today and Wexford in the 1800s, including the landscape and climate. However, as is true of most counties in Ireland, many aspects of life in Wexford have changed beyond recognition. These include transport, diet and economic activity.
In general, farmers no longer need to pay rent to landlords, as the system of landlordism was phased out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Therefore, most farmers now own the land that they work or have the option of buying land, both in Wexford and throughout Ireland.