County Tipperary

Sally had fall break last week from school so we took advantage and did some further exploring around Ireland - a trip through counties Tipperary, Cork, and Kerry. Our first multi-day/multi-locale road trip in Ireland! Riley travelled in style...

Starting with our one night but very busy day and a half in County Tipperary…

We started out touring the Rock of Cashel, a complex of medieval buildings from the 12th and 13th century set high up on a limestone outcropping. It’s famous for its hilltop position and gorgeous views of the countryside. It makes total sense, but the way they built these castles into the stone of the hillside is such a cool architectural feature.

The graveyard there was varied with markers from almost a thousand years ago to the last decade.

Then we wandered down through a cow pasture in the rain to check out Hore Abbey (so many jokes about the name)…a long-abandoned 13th century Cistercian monastery that boasted great views of the Rock of Cashel (true).

After lunch in Cashel we left Riley at the hotel in Cahir (Cahir House Hotel) and toured the Mitchelstown Caves (weirdly not located in Mitchelstown). These caves were discovered on a farm in 1833, explore for the next hundred years or so, and then developed partially into a tourist attract in the 1970s. They carried all the concrete for the walkways and steps down by hand. The caves extend about 3 km and only the first 1 km has been developed for tourists. Apparently spelunkers go in further to and there’s a huge lake that’s some 12 meters deep! (but would take hours to reach and my spelunking days are long since past). Learning about the pace of stalagmite (grows up from the floor) and stalactite (grows down from the ceiling) growth is fascinating and humbling. Over thousands of years they can come together to form columns.

They host concerts and film musicians down there (pre-COVID) and I have to say, that would be pretty cool! Those acoustics! But they have to choose instruments wisely—nothing that will damage the stalagmites/-tites, and choose only instruments that can handle the almost 100% humidity (no violins!).

The following morning we explored Cahir itself - Cahir castle (built in 1142) on the river Suir, along with the beautiful adjacent sculpture garden and fairy trail. The castle is quite famous as it was used in filming Excalibur, The Last Duel, The Tudors, among others!

Admittedly, I had originally only booked this first night in Cahir because I could not get a hotel room in Cork, but it was a real treat. I’m so glad we checked it out.