Historic Places in County Tipperary

Standing in grassy parkland amongst trees, Nenagh Castle is an imposing landmark in the Irish market town of Nenagh, in County Tipperary. Nenagh Castle (also known as Nenagh Round) is the best example of a cylindrical keep in Ireland. It used to be attached to a curtain wall which surrounded a five-sided courtyard. Most of the curtain walls have gone, but isolated parts remain. The castle used to have four towers with twin towered southern gateway, and a tower on both the east and west sides of the courtyard. Only fragments of the gateway remain. The circular keep was on the northern corner of the pentagon. The castle is made of limestone rubble. The keep is about 30m tall and 16m across at the base. The walls are about 5m thick at the base. The upper part of the tower including the corbelled parapet was a later addition, constructed around 1860. Facilities The castle is undergoing restoration at the time of writing (2009). Nenagh Castle was built around 1200. Construction was started by Theobald FitzWalter (aka Theobald Walter), a Norman, who died before it was completed. FitzWalter later took on the name of Butler, Nenagh Castle continued as the seat of the Butler family, the Earls of Ormonde, until 1391. The castle changed hands a number of times during the wars of the 17th century. The Williamite War, when King James and King William of Orange fought for the Kingdom of Ireland, resulted in the defeat of James's forces. Nenagh Castle was destroyed by King William's forces in 1692. The circular keep was partially restored in the 19th century by Bishop Michael Flannery, who added a new parapet on top of the tower.

Ardmayle Castle is a ruined tower house located in County Tipperary, in the south of Ireland, sitting in the gently rolling pastoral landscape of the Golden Vale near the River Suir. The structure is a remnant of medieval Irish architecture, belonging to the category of fortified tower houses that were built throughout Ireland from roughly the 14th to the 17th centuries as defensive residences for local lords and Anglo-Norman settler families. While not among the most famous or extensively restored castles in Tipperary — a county extraordinarily rich in medieval fortifications — Ardmayle holds genuine historical interest as a tangible link to the layered feudal and Gaelic history of the region. Its ruined state, common to many such towers, gives it an honest, unvarnished quality that more tourist-managed sites sometimes lack. The area around Ardmayle has deep historical roots, and the castle itself is associated with the broader history of Anglo-Norman penetration into Munster following the invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century. County Tipperary became a significant zone of Norman settlement, and numerous tower houses were erected by families such as the Butlers — the powerful earls of Ormond whose influence dominated this part of Tipperary for centuries. Ardmayle and its surrounding townland would have formed part of the complex web of landholding, loyalty, and occasional violent dispute that characterised medieval Tipperary. The castle likely served as a local seat of control over the agricultural lands of the area, which have always been among the most fertile in Ireland. Physically, what remains of Ardmayle Castle is a largely roofless stone tower, typical of the Irish tower house form: compact, sturdily built from local limestone and sandstone, with walls of considerable thickness designed to resist attack. Like many such ruins in the Irish countryside, it sits partly reclaimed by vegetation, with ivy and moss softening the ancient stonework. The atmosphere around such places is one of quiet melancholy and historical weight, the kind of stillness punctuated only by birdsong and the distant sounds of working farmland. Visitors standing near the walls can observe the quality of the medieval masonry — irregular but enduring — and sense the strategic thinking that went into its placement. The landscape surrounding the castle is quintessentially Tipperary: broad, gently undulating farmland in the heart of the Golden Vale, one of Ireland's most productive agricultural regions. The River Suir flows in the wider area, contributing to the richness of the soil and the lushness of the fields. The village of Cashel, with its extraordinary Rock of Cashel rising dramatically from the plain, is within a relatively short distance to the east, making this part of Tipperary one of the most historically dense corners of Ireland. The town of Thurles lies to the north, and the broader region offers a wealth of early Christian and medieval sites in close proximity. For practical visiting purposes, Ardmayle Castle is a rural ruin accessible by country road in the townland of Ardmayle, between Cashel and Thurles. As with many such sites in Ireland, there is no formal visitor infrastructure — no car park, no interpretive centre, no entrance fee. Access is typically a matter of approaching on foot along a rural road or lane, and visitors should be mindful that surrounding land is private farmland. The best time to visit, as with most outdoor heritage sites in Ireland, is during the drier months from late spring through early autumn, when the roads are more reliably passable and the light is at its most generous. Sturdy footwear is advisable given the terrain. One of the quiet fascinations of a place like Ardmayle is precisely its obscurity. Unlike the Rock of Cashel or Cahir Castle — both major Tipperary landmarks drawing thousands of visitors — Ardmayle survives in the Irish landscape largely unnoticed by tourism, which gives it a raw authenticity. It represents the hundreds of lesser tower houses scattered across Ireland that together tell the story of medieval life as fully as any flagship heritage site, but in a more intimate and unmediated way. Standing at such a ruin, with the Golden Vale stretching away in every direction and no other visitor in sight, it is possible to feel the texture of Irish medieval history in a way that can be harder to access in more developed settings.

Roscrea Castle in County Tipperary is a medieval castle complex of exceptional completeness, comprising a polygonal enclosure with a tall rectangular gate tower and flanking towers built in the thirteenth century on the site of Saint Cronan's early Christian monastery. The gate tower stands to its full height and is one of the most complete examples of its type in Ireland. Adjacent to the castle, a seventeenth-century Damer House incorporated within the medieval walls now serves as a heritage centre interpreting the history of both castle and town. The ruins of a high cross and a Romanesque church chancel from the original monastic site create a remarkable juxtaposition of early Christian and Norman medieval architecture at this ancient Tipperary crossroads town.

Ballynahow Castle is a well-preserved circular tower house located in County Tipperary, in the midlands of the Republic of Ireland. It stands as one of the finest examples of a cylindrical tower house in the country, a relatively uncommon form in a landscape dominated by the more typical rectangular or square tower house designs. This alone makes it a genuinely remarkable structure for anyone with an interest in medieval Irish architecture. The castle is a protected national monument and, while not a major tourist destination in the commercial sense, it rewards those who make the effort to seek it out with an authentic and largely undisturbed encounter with a piece of medieval Irish heritage. The castle dates to the sixteenth century and is associated with the Purcell family, a prominent Anglo-Norman dynasty who held significant power and land across County Tipperary during the medieval period. The Purcells were originally a Norman family who arrived in Ireland following the Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century and became thoroughly integrated into the political and social fabric of Tipperary over subsequent generations. Tower houses of this kind were built primarily as fortified residences, offering their owners both security and a visible statement of status and territorial control. Ballynahow's circular design was likely chosen for its structural advantages, as a round plan offers no vulnerable corners and provides excellent sightlines in all directions. Physically, the castle is a tall, robust circular tower constructed from local limestone and rubble masonry. It rises several storeys and retains much of its original fabric, including internal features such as vaulted ceilings, wall passages, and the remains of floors supported on corbels. The walls are notably thick, as was standard practice for defensive tower houses, and small windows punctuate the exterior at various levels. Climbing inside — where access has historically been possible — gives a strong impression of the functional austerity of medieval fortified living. The stonework is weathered and moss-tinged, and the structure has an organic relationship with the surrounding field that gives it a quietly dramatic presence against the open Tipperary sky. The surrounding landscape is typical of the fertile Golden Vale region of Tipperary — gently rolling pastureland, well-hedged fields, and a broad, quiet agricultural countryside that has been farmed continuously for centuries. The area around the castle coordinates places it in a rural setting between the towns of Thurles and Roscrea, in a part of the county that sees relatively few visitors despite its historical richness. The wider region is dotted with other medieval remains, and the Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland's most iconic historical sites, lies within reasonable driving distance to the south. Holy Cross Abbey, a beautifully restored Cistercian monastery, is also nearby and makes an excellent companion visit. For practical visiting purposes, the castle is a rural field monument and there is no formal visitor centre, car park, or staffed access point. Visitors typically approach along minor country roads, and the surrounding roads are narrow, so careful navigation is advised. The site is best visited during dry weather, as the ground around the tower can be muddy in wetter months, which is much of the Irish year. The castle is most comfortably visited in late spring or summer when the light is good and the days are long. As with many Irish tower houses in agricultural settings, respectful behaviour around the structure and awareness of private land boundaries is important. Checking current access conditions locally before visiting is always advisable. One of the most quietly compelling aspects of Ballynahow is that it has avoided the heavy-handed restoration or commercialisation that sometimes diminishes the atmosphere of better-known sites. It remains a genuine field monument, standing more or less as it has for centuries, surrounded by farmland rather than interpretive panels. Its cylindrical form is unusual enough that architectural historians and medieval scholars have taken a particular interest in it as a specimen of a building type, and it is cited in studies of Irish tower houses as a notable survival. For a traveller willing to leave the main roads and explore the quieter textures of the Irish midlands, it offers a direct and unmediated connection to the medieval past that more famous sites, for all their grandeur, sometimes cannot match.

Set on a limestone plateau the castle at the Rock of Cashel forms part of a historical site in the town of Cashel 11 miles from south west of Tipperary. The site also known as the Cashel of Kings and St Patrick's Rock is a collection of buildings including a round tower, Romanesque chapel, cathedral and castle which are linked together as one building. The main structures on the site today are from the 12th and 13th centuries and are in reasonable repair. The entire site is surrounded by a large wall which also encircles an extensive graveyard with a number of high crosses. The oldest building on the site is the round tower dating back to 1100AD. The tower 90 feet in height is very well preserved and was built with an entrance 12 feet above ground level. Cormac's chapel dates back to 1134AD and was built for King Cormac III of Munster. The Romanesque church is unlike any other because it has twin towers at either side of the nave and chancel which were decorated by carpenters sent by the Abbot of Regensburg in Germany. The chapel also has barrel vaulted ceilings and intricate decoration over the main entrances. The Cathedral; built in the shape of a crucifix between 1235 and 1270, has a central tower. The western part of the cathedral is the part that is attached to the castle. The Hall of the Vicars Choral is a 15th century building within the cathedral where laymen were appointed to assist with the worship. This part of the site was restored by the Office of Public works in 1975 in connection with the European Architectural Heritage year and is now where visitors enter the site. Facilities As well as the collection of buildings the Rock of Cashel has exhibition space and an audio visual show outlining the history of the site. The site is open from October to March between 9am and 4.30pm, April to June 9am and 5.30pm and July and August between 9am and 7pm. During the Irish Confederate wars in 1647 Cashel was attacked by English soldiers under the command of the 1st Earl of Inchquin, Murrough O'Brien in one of the most brutal parts of the war. Most of the 1,000 civilians, apart from the Bishop and Mayor who had a secret hiding place, were killed. Following the killing the site was plundered for its religious artifacts and even the carriage belonging to the Bishop was stolen. Those items deemed worthless such as statues were smashed or defaced and then the whole town was set alight. It wasn't until 1749 that the Bishop of Cashel had the remains of the cathedral's roof removed.

Cahir Castle is a situated in the centre of the town of Cahir. Built on a rocky island on the River Suir, 12 miles south east of Tipperary in the south of Ireland. Cahir castle is an extremely well preserved castle. It has retained its tower, keep and most of its defensive walls. The complex comprises of a series of courts, the inner court is set to the north at the highest point with the keep to the south which originally served as a gatehouse. Facilities The castle is open to the public and offers both guided tours and a modern and informative audio visual presentation entitled 'partly hidden, partly revealed'. It is a popular tourist attraction because it is one of the largest and well preserved castles in Ireland and has managed to keep many of it's original features. The castle is open year round between 09:30 and 17:30 March to October and 09:30 - 16:30 November - February. The castle was built in 1142 by the Prince of Thomond, Conor O'Brien on the site of an earlier fort. Edward III granted the castle to the James Butler in 1357 and also awarded him the title of Baron of Cahir in recognition of his loyalty. The castle was considered 'impregnable' until a three day siege in 1599 when the castle was bombarded with heavy cannon fire and was eventually taken by the Devereux, Earl of Essex. During the Irish Confederate Wars it was surrounded by hostile forces twice more and taken by Lord Inchiquin in 1647 and then Oliver Cromwell in the conquest of Ireland. The castle layout was changed considerably and enlarged during work to repair some of the damage caused by the battles, but was then left abandoned until 1840 when the partial rebuilding of the Great Hall took place. The castle became the property of the state after the death of Lord Cahir in 1961; it was classified as a national monument and taken into the care of the Office of Public Works.

Lisheen Castle is situated in open countryside 30 miles west of Kilkenny in the centre of Ireland. The Tudor style castle built over two floors comprises a main crenellated building, a central tower with projecting gallery and side turrets built of grey stone. It is set on sweeping lawns giving views out to the countryside beyond. Facilities Lisheen Castle has been fully refurbished throughout and is now used as luxury self catering accommodation decorated and furnished in a comfortable traditional style. The castle is full of features including ceilings decorated with Celtic murals and marble fireplaces The castle has 9 luxury bedrooms sleeping up to 16 people; one room with a four poster bed, Regency dining room, library, old style kitchen and reception room. For guests celebrating a special occasion or those who simply do not wish to cook the castle can provide its very own top class catering team and head chef, making it an ideal location for an intimate wedding reception. The earliest record of the castle was in 1827 where John Lloyd Esq. was recorded at 'the castle' and paying taxes on surrounding land he continued to make additions to the original castellated building. In 1856 Charles Henry Lloyd succeeded to the estate and lived there until his death in 1887 when the castle was left to his eldest son Charles Edward. Charles and the rest of the Lloyd family all emigrated to different parts of the world with Charles heading for Australia. He went to make his fortune and rebuild a crumbling home, but never came back to Lisheen and so the castle was rented for 80 pounds a year to the Hamilton family between 1896 and 1903. In 1903 a new land act was introduced which encouraged land owners to sell their land with favorable terms to their tenant farms. This is just what Charles did leaving just 143 acres and the castle to create a new estate. The castle and estate was then sold on a number of occasions until in 1921 it was under the ownership of John O'Meara. In July of that year the castle was one of the last to be burnt down in the Irish War of Independence and was left a shell until 1960 when the Land Commission took control of the buildings and land and divided them. The castle was eventually purchased by the Everard family in 1996; they set about the castle's restoration which took them 3 years.

Burncourt Castle is situated near Burncourt off the M8 five miles south west of Cahir. The castle comprises a rectangular central block with a four storey square tower at each corner. The interior was lit by mullioned windows. Several fireplaces can be seen in the interior walls, and there were originally seven chimneys. Parts of the walled courtyard can still be seen including a corner turret. A stone in the entrance to the nearby farmyard is inscribed with the date 1641 - this stone is believed to have been once positioned over the castle doorway. Facilities Burncourt Castle was built in 1641 by Sir Richard Everard. Sir Richard joined the Catholic Confederates at Kilkenny in 1642, and became a member of the Supreme Council. The castle was destroyed by fire in 1650. Some reports say it was burned down by Oliver Cromwell's troops, others say the Everard family burned it themselves to prevent Oliver Cromwell's troops capturing the castle. Either way, the castle was destroyed. Sir Richard Everard was involved in defending the city of Limerick against Cromwell's troops, but was captured and hung by Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law, General Ireton in 1651. Prior to the fire, it was known as Clogheen Castle or Everard's Castle. After the fire it was abandoned and has remained a ruin. A two storey house was built adjacent to the castle in the early 18th century by painter Anthony Chearnly. A formal garden was established in front of the castle courtyard. This house is now in ruins.

Loughlohery Castle is a tower house ruin located in County Tipperary, in the south of Ireland, situated in the broader landscape of the Golden Vale and within reasonable distance of the River Suir catchment area. Tower houses of this type are among the most characteristic medieval monuments of Munster and Leinster, built predominantly between the 14th and 17th centuries by Anglo-Norman and Gaelic Irish families alike as fortified residences that combined defensive necessity with the assertion of local lordship. This particular structure belongs to that widespread but individually significant tradition, offering visitors a direct encounter with the layered history of medieval Tipperary at a quiet, largely untroubled rural site. The castle's origins almost certainly lie in the late medieval period, when the construction of tower houses accelerated dramatically across Ireland, partly stimulated by a Crown subsidy of ten pounds offered to those who would build defensible stone towers in the Pale and its borderlands. Whether Loughlohery was built under that incentive or through purely local ambition, the structure reflects the social and political conditions of a contested landscape in which local magnates—both the dominant Butler dynasty and smaller Gaelic septs—competed for land, cattle, and prestige. The territory around this part of Tipperary was subject to the shifting influence of the Butlers of Ormond, whose reach extended across much of the county, and smaller castle sites like this one often served as the administrative and residential centres of individual manors or townlands. The exact family who built or first occupied Loughlohery is not definitively established in widely available historical records, which itself makes the site a subject of quiet local historical interest. Physically, the remains present the characteristic form of an Irish tower house in an advanced state of ruin: a roughly rectangular or square stone structure, built from local limestone and sandstone rubble, with walls that have survived in part to a considerable height while other sections have collapsed inward or been robbed over the centuries for building material. The masonry has the rough, time-worn texture that comes from six or more centuries of exposure to the Irish climate, and the mortar joints are long since softened by moss and lichen into tones of grey-green and amber. Nettles and ivy typically colonise the base of such structures, and the interior, open to the sky, accumulates leaf litter and the quiet sounds of birds. On a still day, the silence at such a place has a particular quality—broken only by wind through the gaps in the stonework and the distant sounds of farm machinery or cattle. The surrounding countryside is quintessentially that of lowland Tipperary: gently rolling pasture, rich and green from the heavy Atlantic rainfall, divided by hedgerows of hawthorn, ash, and elder. The townland of Loughlohery itself takes its name from the Irish landscape tradition of naming places for their water features or terrain characteristics. The broader area sits within a part of Tipperary that is not heavily touristed, lying between the better-known heritage corridors of Cashel to the east and Tipperary town and the Galtee Mountains further west and south. This gives the location a genuine sense of remoteness and authenticity, without the managed presentation of a major heritage site. Visiting Loughlohery Castle requires the kind of self-directed, map-in-hand approach that characterises heritage exploration across rural Ireland. The site is accessible by road from the network of local and regional roads crossing this part of Tipperary, and a car is essentially necessary. Visitors should be prepared for the possibility that access involves crossing or walking along field margins, and as with many unscheduled or informally accessible monuments in Ireland, it is courteous and often necessary to seek the goodwill of local landowners. There is no formal car park, interpretive centre, or on-site signage of the kind found at state-managed monuments, and the castle is best described as a field monument in agricultural land. The best times to visit are late spring through early autumn, when daylight hours are generous and the ground underfoot is less waterlogged, though the castle has a particular atmospheric quality on overcast winter days when the stone darkens in the rain and the surrounding fields are empty and still. One of the most quietly fascinating aspects of sites like Loughlohery is precisely their anonymity—the way in which hundreds of tower houses across Ireland have passed out of documentary memory while their physical remains endure. The National Monuments Service of Ireland records and protects many such structures, and Loughlohery likely appears in the Record of Monuments and Places for County Tipperary, which affords it a degree of legal protection even without active management. For those interested in medieval Irish architecture, vernacular stone construction, or the social history of Gaelic and Anglo-Norman Ireland, a visit to a quiet, unrestored ruin of this kind can be more evocative and intellectually rewarding than a visit to a heavily interpreted site, because it demands imaginative engagement rather than passive reception.

Ormonde Castle is situated on the River Suir near Carrick on Suir, 16 miles north of Waterford in the south of Ireland. Ormonde Castle is a fully restored Elizabethan manor house surrounding a small courtyard. The house is built over two floors with a gabled attic and two of the original four towers from the original building. Facilities The castle is open to the public and access to the interior is by guided tour only. Visitors can see a variety of historical documents along with fine plasterwork and murals including one of Queen Elizabeth I. The gallery on the first floor; sixty feet in length, has a large limestone fireplace and a stucco ceiling with heraldic symbols. This room is perhaps the greatest achievement of the restoration project as the ceiling was in a collapsed state. The castle is open to the public daily from the beginning of May until the end of September between 10am and 6pm. The original tower house on the site was built in 1309 with the 1st Earl of Ormonde, James Butler, being the first of the family to occupy the castle in 1315. Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde and also known as the 10th Earl of Ormonde, divided his time between Ormonde and the court of Queen Elizabeth I his cousin at the invitation of Anne Boleyn. It was here that he found an appreciation for Elizabethan architecture and added the first Tudor mansion onto Ormonde Castle in the years after 1565. The remodeling included beautiful interiors with carved chimneys and the decoration of its ceilings with friezes. The 'Great Earl of Ormonde', James Butler lived spent much of his time at Ormonde and was the last of the family to reside at the castle. On his death in 1688 the family abandoned the property and it was only in 1947 that they eventually handed the castle over to the government who then became responsible for its restoration.

Ballindoney Castle is a medieval tower house in County Tipperary and represents the long Irish tradition of fortified domestic architecture that spread across the countryside from the later Middle Ages onward. Buildings of this kind were created to give local elites a defensible residence without the scale or cost of a great enclosure castle. The result was a tall, compact stone structure designed around security, visibility and controlled access. Tower houses of this type became so prevalent across Ireland between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries that several thousand examples, in varying states of preservation, survive in the Irish landscape today. What makes sites like Ballindoney historically interesting is that they sit at the intersection of everyday life and conflict. The people who lived here would not have experienced the building only as a fortification. It was also a home, a place for household management, food storage, family life and the exercise of local authority over the tenants and dependent communities that supported the castle's occupants. The thick walls, small openings and elevated arrangement of interior spaces reveal how concerns about violence shaped even routine domestic architecture during this period of Irish history. County Tipperary contains an unusually high concentration of castles and tower houses reflecting the long-standing contested nature of this fertile, strategically important county on the border between Gaelic Munster and the more anglicised Pale. These structures collectively tell the story of a countryside divided among Norman, Old English and Gaelic families and lordships where strong houses were necessary markers of status and survival. Even reduced to ruins, they show how densely history once occupied what is now an agricultural landscape. Today Ballindoney Castle stands as an evocative survival from that world. Its appeal lies partly in its authenticity as a relatively undisturbed ruin in a rural setting that preserves something of the agricultural and social context that gave the tower house its meaning. County Tipperary's wealth of ecclesiastical ruins, including the extraordinary complex at the Rock of Cashel, makes this part of Ireland especially rewarding for visitors with an interest in the medieval landscape.

Redwood Castle is situated in Lorrha near Lough Derg, 8 miles from Birr in the centre of Ireland. The castle is a square stone Norman tower house built over four floors, with battlements and a projecting gallery at the top supported by a row of arches. Inside the fully restored building the main rooms are stacked above one another with the ancillary rooms being at the front. Facilities The Castle is open daily between the 28th June and the 30th August with guided tours available between 2pm and 6pm. The rest of the year the castle is used as the family home of the Egan's and the location for some of the Egan clan rallies. Redwood Castle was built in the early 1200's by and Anglo Norman family called De Cougan. Originally it was only two storeys high with the entrance being on the second floor for security. In 1350 the castle was granted to the O'Kennedy family who were responsible for adding the further storeys, fortifications and a murder hole (a hole in the gateway ceiling through which the defenders could throw missiles or boiling liquids on attackers). The O'Kennedy's already occupied the nearby Lackeen Castle, so Redwood was passed to the bardic family of the Mac Egans. The Mac Egans of Redwood specialized in the practice of Brehon law, and founded a school of law and history at the castle. By 1654 Redwood Castle had been significantly damaged by Cromwell's troops and was in ruins with only the walls and the spiral staircase remaining. The castle remained in ruins until the beginning of the 20th century when a local farmer cut a hole in the ground floor to allow access for his horse and cart and used the castle as a shelter. In 1972 Michael Egan a descendent of the original Mac Egan family bought the castle and started on a huge restoration project, although some believed that the castle was not salvageable. His ambition was to have it as a second home, but to avoid paying tax on it the castle had to be open to the public as a site of historic interest for at least 2 months of the year, and in 1980 this is what happened.

Ardfinnan Castle is situated on rocky slope overlooking the River Suir valley eight miles west of Clonmel. It has views north west to the Galtee Mountains and south to the Knockmealdown Mountains. The castle is rectangular in shape with square towers at the corners, and a fortified entrance gateway. The castle is on high ground near the old bridge over the River Suir. It was originally built to guard the river crossing in Ardfinnan. The old bridge with its 14 arches makes an interesting approach to the castle. Facilities The castle is privately owned and not open to the public. Ardfinnan Castle was built around 1185 for Prince John (who later became King John of England). In the 1640s in was occupied by Oliver Cromwell's troops. It was held as a military post until 1649, when it was destroyed by Cromwell's forces. The castle was partially restored and rebuilt in the 18th century and 19th century.