County Tipperary Guide (Tiobraid Árann)
“The Premier County” - in the province of Munster. County town: Clonmel.
The Rock of Cashel and the Glen of Aherlow - it’s a long way to here.
A large inland county of rich farmland - the Golden Vale is some of the best land in Ireland - Tipperary is dominated by the spectacular Rock of Cashel, a fortress of kings and saints rising from the plain. It’s “the Premier County”, with deep sporting roots and the lovely Glen of Aherlow beneath the Galtee Mountains.
Ireland's largest inland county sprawls across the heart of Munster, its name known around the world thanks to a marching song written by a man who likely never set foot in it. Tipperary's wealth has always come from its land: the Golden Vale, some of the richest dairy pasture in Europe, rolls between the Galtee, Knockmealdown and Silvermine mountains, and the River Suir threads the county from its source near Templemore down through Thurles, Cahir and Clonmel. That fertility drew Norman castles and great abbeys, and later made the county a stronghold of prosperous farming, horse breeding and agitation over land rights alike.
History sits heavily and proudly here. The Rock of Cashel, seat of the Kings of Munster before it passed to the church in 1101, is one of Ireland's most spectacular monuments, while the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in a Thurles hotel in 1884, making the county a cradle of hurling ever since. The War of Independence effectively began at Soloheadbeg in 1919, and Fenian tradition runs deep through figures like Kickham and O'Leary. Until 2014 Tipperary was unique in being split into two administrative ridings, North and South, each with its own county town.
Cities, towns and villages in Tipperary
- Clonmel - The county's largest town, on the Suir beneath the Comeraghs, long famous for Bulmers cider and as the birthplace of novelist Laurence Sterne.
- Nenagh - Former county town of North Tipperary, dominated by a superb 13th-century Norman castle keep and now a thriving food and market town.
- Thurles - Cathedral town where the GAA was founded at Hayes' Hotel in 1884, and home to Semple Stadium, hurling's most storied provincial ground.
- Cashel - Heritage town at the foot of the Rock of Cashel, whose round tower, Cormac's Chapel and ruined cathedral crown an ancient royal site.
- Tipperary Town - The market town that gave the county its name, set in the Golden Vale with a strong Fenian and land-agitation history.
- Cahir - Home to one of Ireland's largest and best-preserved castles on an island in the Suir, plus the ornamental Swiss Cottage nearby.
- Carrick-on-Suir - Riverside town holding Ormond Castle, Ireland's finest Tudor manor house, and proudly linked to cycling great Sean Kelly.
- Roscrea - One of Ireland's oldest towns, grown around a 7th-century monastery, with a round tower, high cross and Damer House castle complex.
- Templemore - Trim north-county town best known as the home of the Garda Siochana training college.
- Fethard - Small medieval town with the most complete circuit of town walls surviving in Ireland, close to the Coolmore horse-breeding empire.
Famous people from Tipperary
- Charles Kickham - Mullinahone-born Fenian leader and author of Knocknagow, one of the most widely read Irish novels of the 19th century.
- Laurence Sterne - Author of Tristram Shandy, one of the great experimental novels in English, born in Clonmel in 1713.
- John O'Leary - Tipperary Town-born Fenian intellectual immortalised in Yeats's line that romantic Ireland was dead and gone, with O'Leary in the grave.
- Dan Breen - Soloheadbeg-born IRA leader whose 1919 ambush is regarded as the opening action of the War of Independence.
- Sean Treacy - Republican from near Tipperary Town who led the Soloheadbeg ambush alongside Breen and died in a Dublin gunfight in 1920.
- Sean Kelly - One of cycling's all-time greats, winner of Paris-Roubaix and the Vuelta, raised on a farm outside Carrick-on-Suir.
- Frank Patterson - Clonmel-born tenor known as Ireland's Golden Voice, who sang for popes, presidents and in The Dead and Miller's Crossing.
- Pat Shortt - Thurles-born comedian and actor, half of D'Unbelievables and award-winning star of the film Garage.
- Una Healy - Thurles singer who found international fame with the pop group The Saturdays.
- Shane Long - Republic of Ireland striker from Gortnahoe who scored the fastest goal in Premier League history in 2019.
Did you know?
- The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in the billiard room of Hayes' Hotel, Thurles, on 1 November 1884.
- Until 2014 Tipperary was the only Irish county divided into two separate ridings, North and South, each with its own county council.
- Galtymore, at around 917 metres, is the highest inland mountain in Ireland.
- The Soloheadbeg ambush of 21 January 1919, seen as the first action of the War of Independence, took place on the same day the First Dail met in Dublin.
- It's a Long Way to Tipperary, the great marching song of the First World War, was written in 1912 by Jack Judge, an Englishman of Irish descent.
- Coolmore Stud near Fethard is the largest thoroughbred racehorse breeding operation in the world.
- The Hogan Stand at Croke Park is named after Michael Hogan of Grangemockler, the Tipperary footballer shot dead on Bloody Sunday in 1920.
- Tipperary is the largest of Ireland's inland counties, and the Rock of Cashel was reputedly handed to the church in 1101 by King Muirchertach Ua Briain.
Places to visit in Tipperary
- Rock of Cashel - A dramatic medieval fortress of kings and saints.
Surnames from Tipperary: O'Brien · Ryan · Kennedy · Carroll · Hogan · Tobin · Keating · Egan · Treacy · Hickey · Slattery · Purcell