Three of the entries below sit within a few minutes’ walk of each other in Clones. A truncated round tower among the oldest in Ireland stands near a high cross assembled from the fragments of at least two 10th-century crosses and the ruins of the ‘Wee Abbey’; the Cassandra Hand Centre, in the 1859 school paid for by the lace industry she started during the Famine, and St Tiernach’s Church of Ireland are both a short walk from them. The restored Ulster Canal gives flat towpath walking from the same town.
Monaghan town holds two more. St Macartan’s Cathedral crowns the Hill of the Monks above the town, the only cathedral in the county, with a hammerbeam roof and a 2,000-pipe organ inside. Down in Church Square, the 1827–30 courthouse still carries bullet marks from the Civil War on its Doric columns, and the memorial to the seven people killed in the 1974 bombing stands outside it.
The rest need a drive. Carrickmacross has the 1841 workhouse, now a community centre with weekday guided tours, and the roofless Magheross Church in a working graveyard on the town’s edge. Clontibret and the cairn on Mullyash Mountain are linked by the Monaghan Way, a half-day walk between them. Hollywood Lake, free to enter since 1969, is the summer stop, with swimming and a MacMahon crannog out in the water.
The only cathedral in the county and a landmark of the Irish Gothic Revival, with rose windows, a hammerbeam roof and a 2,000-pipe organ.
Early medieval monastic remains inside a working border town, including one of Ireland's oldest round towers, a composite high cross and canal towpath walking.
Built in 1841 for 500 people and holding nearly 2,000 by 1851, it gives the county's most direct account of the Famine years.
A lace industry begun in 1847 to keep families out of the workhouse, told in the very school its earnings paid for.
A village of 172 people on the Monaghan Way, known for Hugh O'Neill's 1595 victory in the opening clash of the Nine Years' War.
10 of 11 shown — tap a pin for the place.
Monaghan, monaghan
St Macartan’s Cathedral crowns the Hill of the Monks above Monaghan, the only cathedral in the county and one of the great works of the Irish Gothic Revival. J.J. McCarthy designed it and William Hague finished the spire; inside are a 2,000-pipe organ, a hammerbeam roof and rose windows, alongside the marks of a drastic 1980s reordering.
Clones, monaghan
Clones packs early medieval monastic ruins into a working border town: a round tower among Ireland's oldest, a high cross assembled from the fragments of at least two others, and the restored Ulster Canal for flat towpath walks. It's also the home town of novelist Patrick McCabe, whose The Butcher Boy was filmed here.
Carrickmacross, monaghan
Clones, monaghan
Clones, monaghan
Clontibret, monaghan
Hollywood Forest Park, monaghan
Magheross Graveyard, monaghan
Church Square, monaghan
Monaghan, monaghan
Clones Town Centre, monaghan
← All things to do in County Monaghan
Book tours & tickets
We may earn a commission if you book through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Book tours, skip-the-line tickets and day trips with GetYourGuide. Free cancellation on most experiences.
See tours & tickets in County Monaghan →