In September 1828, a crowd reported at up to 50,000 packed into Clogheen to hear Daniel O’Connell argue the case for Catholic emancipation, won the following year. The village today has fewer than 500 residents, which tells you most of what you need to know: Clogheen is small and quiet now, but it sits at a real crossroads of County Tipperary history and walking country. It lies in the Galtee-Vee Valley, the Galtee Mountains to the north and the Knockmealdowns close to the south, with the River Tar – a tributary of the Suir – running through it. The Irish name, Cloichín an Mhargaidh, means ‘little stone of the market’.
If you do one thing here, drive up to the Vee.
The Vee and Grubb’s Grave
The road south out of the village, the R668 toward Lismore, climbs over the Knockmealdowns in a sharp hairpin known as the Vee. It’s the best viewpoint in this range, opening out over the patchwork of the Golden Vale with the Galtees beyond. Just below the gap sits Bay Lough, a dark corrie lake with a path along its edge and a long association with local ghost stories; it has its own page here.
A couple of kilometres from the village, on the lower slopes, is Grubb’s Grave, the cairn monument to Samuel Grubb, a 19th-century member of the local Quaker family. There’s a tiny lay-by to park in and a short path up – muddy and wet more often than not – to a spot with a wide view back down the valley. Bring boots.
Walking from Clogheen
Clogheen earns its ‘walker’s village’ billing as the start (or finish) point for three waymarked long-distance trails: the Tipperary Heritage Way, the East Munster Way and the Blackwater Way.
The Blackwater Way begins here as the Avondhu Way, which runs roughly 100 km south to Bweeng in County Cork over about five stages – most walkers take the best part of a week. Combined with the Duhallow Way, the full Blackwater Way is a 168 km route that follows the Blackwater valley from the edge of west Waterford across north Cork and into Kerry. You don’t have to commit to the whole thing: the trails are well signed for short out-and-back days, and the village makes an easy base for them.
A village with a long memory
For its size, Clogheen has held onto a lot of history.
Its best-known figure is Father Nicholas Sheehy, a parish priest executed in 1766 after a trial widely seen then and since as a stitch-up during the persecution of the Whiteboys. He’s buried at Shanrahan graveyard just outside the village and is still remembered locally as a martyr.
The grand house that once stood nearby is gone. Shanbally Castle, built around 1820 to a design by John Nash – the architect behind much of Regency London – for the 1st Viscount Lismore, was demolished by the State in 1960, one of the more regretted losses of an Irish country house.
The village itself was shaped in the 18th and 19th centuries by two families: the O’Callaghans, who laid out new houses, paved streets, a market house and barracks, and the Quaker Grubbs, who ran the mills. At its peak the area had seven flour mills; by 1880 all but one had closed, and that survivor had a curious second life in 1939 as the base for Tipperary Products Ltd.
More recently, Clogheen made the national news in 2000 when a former hotel earmarked to house refugees was damaged in an arson attack – an episode that fed Gerry Stembridge’s television film Black Day at Black Rock. The Travellers’ rights activist Nan Joyce, born in 1940, was from here.
Practical information
- Getting there: Clogheen is on the R665 and R668; the nearest large towns are Cahir, about 14 km away, and Mitchelstown, about 20 km. Bus Éireann route 245 calls five times a day each way on weekdays (three at weekends), linking the village to Clonmel, Mitchelstown, Fermoy and Cork, and route 18 runs from Dublin. A car is the practical choice for the Vee and the trailheads.
- Family stop: Parson’s Green Pet Farm, Caravan & Camping Park, just outside the village, is the main spot for families, combining a pet farm with caravan pitches, camping and mobile homes.
- Fishing: the River Tar holds wild brown trout, a draw noted in the old county directories.
- When to go: the village and its trails are open year-round and free. Spring to autumn gives the best of the walking; in winter, check conditions before heading over the Vee, as the high road takes snow and ice.
Time a visit for a clear afternoon, drive over the Vee to Bay Lough, and you’ll have done the best of the area in an hour – the rest is for walkers with a few days to give it.