Overview
Tallow’s Irish name, Tulach an Iarainn, means ‘hill of the iron’, and it earned it. In the early 1600s Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, bought up the surrounding estates and poured money into smelting; at its height the town’s forges turned out around 21,000 tonnes of wrought iron, worth £378,000 at the time – the guts of £80 million in today’s money. The oak woods that fed the furnaces were exhausted by about 1687 and the industry died with them, but the name stuck.
So this is a town that was industrial before most of Ireland was, and has spent the three centuries since quietly doing other things. When the iron stopped, grain went down the River Bride to Youghal; wool combing and lace-making arrived in the 1800s. Tallow sat as a parliamentary borough from 1613 until the Act of Union in 1801. Today it’s a working border town, handy as a base for Dungarvan, Cappoquin and the south Waterford coast, all a short drive off.
One story worth carrying with you: during the Land War in 1887, the local MP Douglas Pyne shut himself inside Lisfinny Castle – the Desmonds’ 15th-century tower house, still standing above the valley – after a warrant went out for his arrest, and slipped away past the police cordon with help from his supporters.
The church, the convent and the library
The tallest thing in Tallow is the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Chapel Street, built in 1826. Step in for the altar: white Carrara marble, green Tinos marble and local Cork stone. There are 23 stained-glass windows, each with its own story, and the organ – built by the London firm Robson & Son in 1834 – is still played by the parish choir. If you have twenty minutes in Tallow, spend them here.
Up on Convent Street, St Joseph’s Carmelite Monastery was founded on 29 July 1836. The old convent was demolished in 1996 and the present monastery opened in March 1997; the enclosed Carmelite community still runs a small printing press for Mass and memorial cards, and holds Mass at 9am on weekdays, with the chapel open to visitors.
For local history, Tallow Library is one of County Waterford’s original Carnegie libraries, opened in 1910 and now run from the Tallow Enterprise Centre. It opens Thursday and Friday, 10am to 5pm, and holds the local archives – including digitised burial registers from the surrounding parishes, which you can search free of charge during those hours. If you’re tracing Waterford or east Cork ancestry, ring ahead so someone can have the records ready.
The horse fair and the walks
The Tallow Horse Fair has run since 1910 and takes over the town on 3 September each year (the following Monday if the 3rd lands on a weekend). Main Street closes, and caravans, livestock pens and dealers fill it – one of the few rural horse fairs left in Munster, and the day to come if you want the town at full tilt rather than at rest.
The rest of the year, the walking is the draw. The Ramp Boreen Walk, a gravel path opened in 2010, links the eastern and western ends of town and is the local route for 5km charity walks. Down at the water, flat riverside trails follow the Bride from the town centre. The poet Edmund Spenser is said to have written part of The Faerie Queene along these banks, near Tallow Bridge – take that with the pinch of salt any ‘reputedly’ deserves.
Two other local names worth knowing: the footballer Mick McCarthy, former Republic of Ireland captain and manager, has family roots here – his grandfather came from Chapel Street – and Tallow’s GAA club, going since at least 1887, plays at Páirc Éamonn de Paor and has county honours to its name.
Food and drink
Main Street has the usual run of pubs, cafés and small shops. What’s worth seeking out is the local produce – Knockanore cheese, Deise honey, Barron’s bread and O’Flynn’s sausages – sold through the dairy co-operative store and served in the eateries around town.
Getting there and parking
Tallow sits where the R627, R628 and R634 meet, an easy drive from Waterford, Cork, Fermoy and Midleton; Cork and Waterford airports are both about 45–50 minutes away. The former Tallow Road railway station ran from 1872 to 1967 and is long closed, so a car is much the simplest way in.
Local Link buses serve the town: route 363 to Dungarvan via Lismore and Cappoquin (15 times a day Monday to Saturday, 8 on Sundays and holidays), and route 364 to Fermoy via Curraglass, Conna, Bridesbridge and Castlelyons (three each way, Monday to Saturday). A pre-booked service also runs to Youghal.
For parking, there are two public car parks – one on West Street, one on Main Street between Kearney’s Catering and Forde’s Spar – plus plenty of on-street space. The main streets are level and easy underfoot; Lisfinny Castle is reached by uneven stone steps and is harder going for anyone with limited mobility.