Things to Do in County Tipperary

More about County Tipperary

Choosing a base

Clonmel is the all-rounder, but it is not the only sensible choice. Cashel suits anyone who wants the Rock on the doorstep and to see it at dawn before the coaches arrive — the Cashel Palace Hotel, the 1730s archbishop’s palace reopened as a hotel a few years ago, has its own walk up through the garden to the site, and the town has enough guesthouses and pubs to be a comfortable night either way. Cahir is smaller and cheaper, sits on the M8 halfway between Cashel and the Knockmealdowns, and has the castle and the Swiss Cottage within a riverside stroll.

For walking, stay in the Glen of Aherlow itself or in Bansha at its eastern end: you are then in the Galtees before breakfast rather than driving an hour to them. For the north of the county, which feels like a different place entirely, base on Lough Derg at Dromineer or Terryglass, or in Nenagh if you want a town.

One warning about dates: when Tipperary or Cork or Limerick play championship hurling at Semple Stadium in Thurles, forty-odd thousand people arrive for the afternoon and beds are gone for thirty miles around. Check the fixture list before you book a summer weekend.

Ruins, and there are a lot of them

Hore Abbey sits in a field ten minutes’ walk below the Rock, free and usually empty, and it gives you the best photograph of Cashel there is. Athassel Priory near Golden is the bigger surprise: the largest medieval priory ruin in Ireland, an Augustinian house from around 1200 spread over several acres, reached across a farm field with a stile. Nobody staffs it, nothing is signposted inside, and it can be ankle-deep in mud after rain — wear boots.

Holy Cross Abbey went the other way. A 12th-century Cistercian church left roofless for centuries, it was fully restored in the 1970s and is a working parish church again, still holding its relic of the True Cross. Fethard keeps the most complete circuit of medieval town walls in the country, walkable in twenty minutes. Up north, Roscrea Castle and Damer House share one ticket and one gate, and Nenagh Castle has the finest Norman round keep in Ireland — around 30 m of it, with a stair to the top. In Carrick-on-Suir, Ormond Castle is the best Tudor manor house in Ireland, built for Black Tom Butler in the 1560s in hope of a visit from Elizabeth I that never came; it opens by guided tour in season only.

The Swiss Cottage outside Cahir is a Regency cottage orné attributed to John Nash, thatched, deliberately rustic and full of Dufour wallpaper. Tours are small, guided and seasonal, and they do sell out on summer afternoons.

The mountains and the passes

Galtymore, at 917 m, is the highest inland mountain in Ireland, and the whole Galtee ridge above the Glen of Aherlow is a proper mountain day: five or six hours, no shelter, weather that changes fast. The gentler way in is to walk to one of the corrie lakes — Lough Muskry from Rossadrehid, or Lough Curra higher up — three or four hours return with the cliffs above you the whole way. On the opposite side of the glen the low red ridge of Slievenamuck gives forest tracks and the view back at the Galtees, with the Christ the King statue at the classic pull-in.

The Vee is the drive: the R668 hairpins out of Clogheen over the Knockmealdowns into Waterford, past Bay Lough in its hollow. Time it for late May or June and the rhododendron on the slopes is the reason the road gets photographed. Elsewhere, Slievenamon above Clonmel is a straightforward two-hour climb up a broad track, the Clare Glens near Newport give you waterfalls in a red sandstone gorge on a short loop, and Glengarra Woods south-west of Cahir is an easy river walk under exotic conifers. St Declan’s Way, the old pilgrim road from Cashel over the mountains to Ardmore, has been reopened and waymarked in full.

The Suir, the lake and the flat miles

The Suir Blueway runs about 21 km of towpath from Clonmel to Carrick-on-Suir — flat, surfaced and equally good on foot or by bike, with canoe access along the way. Kilsheelan Bridge is the natural halfway stop. The Suir itself is a serious salmon and trout river with day tickets available on several stretches.

Up on the lake, Garrykennedy is the pick of the harbours — a ruined castle, a working quay and two pubs that do food — and Portroe above it has an old slate quarry filled with startlingly blue water. The Arra Hills loop gives you the lake from above without much climbing.

Hurling, horses and where to eat

Tipperary takes hurling more seriously than almost anywhere, and the county owns the origin story: the GAA was founded in Hayes’ Hotel in Thurles in November 1884, and the building is still there on Liberty Square. Horses matter nearly as much — Coolmore at Fethard is the largest thoroughbred breeding operation in the world, though it is a working stud and not a visitor attraction, so admire the walls from the road.

For an evening, Clonmel has the widest choice of restaurants and the cider heritage to go with it. In Cashel, Brú Ború at the foot of the Rock runs trad music and dance through the summer, which is the most reliable session in the county for anyone who does not want to go pub-hunting.