But where were the invitations issued to the people whose pay packets actually depend on Thurles and Tipperary tourism? How many hoteliers, B&B owners, tour operators, café and retail staff, guides and event organisers; those living the reality of the season, were to be found at this month’s council meeting to spell out, at firsthand, what is choking the industry and what must now change?
Isn’t there a deeper irony here? Are these not the very councillors and officials who, year after year, have presided over the slow neglect and destruction of our visitor attractions, allowing standards to slip, opportunities to be missed, and avoidable damage to mount, only to now lament the consequences as if they were bystanders rather than decision-makers?
I refer of course to the Tipperary County Council members who warned that a shortage of visitor accommodation is now the single biggest barrier to growing tourism in Tipperary, limiting the ability to host events, retain tour groups and convert day-trippers into overnight stays.
Tourism.
At the Tipperary County Council’s January meeting, elected members heard an update on tourism performance and marketing activity, but stressed that the county is effectively trying to grow the visitor economy with insufficient “bed nights” to support conferences, festivals and group travel.
Councillors also raised concerns that coach tours are increasingly stopping briefly at flagship attractions before moving on, while organisers of large gatherings are forced to seek accommodation outside the county due to limited capacity and difficulty securing blocks of rooms.
But is that claim borne out by the numbers? With this year’s event already sold out, and with day tickets priced at €30 and weekend tickets at €45, even a basic calculation raises obvious questions. If the headline attendance figure of 5,000 daily in attendance is accurate, then 5,000weekend tickets at €45.00, would suggest revenue in excess of €225,000 before any single day-ticket sales are even considered.
So why, then, is the Council’s support being described as paltry? On what basis is that judgement being made and against what set of accounts?
The difficulty is that, as far as we are aware, the Council has not publicly published last year’s accounts in relation to the Thurles Musical Festival. Without transparent figures, it is impossible for the public to assess what level of funding was provided, what costs were involved, or whether the paltry label is fair, exaggerated, or simply politically convenient. After all this so called paltry sum is taxpayers money; not the gift of a benevolent and nameless altruistic patroness or good fairy.
Indeed until those accounts are published, the questions will remain: how much public money was actually provided, where did it go, and how does it stack up against the event’s apparent income?
The core warning they claim is simple – promotion is outpacing capacity. Members were clear that marketing alone cannot deliver tourism growth if Tipperary cannot provide sufficient accommodation to keep visitors in the county overnight. The meeting heard that reduced availability in some areas and the broader national pressures on accommodation is impacting Tipperary’s ability to capitalise on tourism demand.
While officials noted this is a national challenge, councillors argued that the consequence for Tipperary is specific and immediate: events, tour groups and visitor spending are being lost because the county cannot consistently offer the volume of bed nights required to compete.
But the people whose pay packets depend on Thurles and Tipperary tourism ask the question “Where is all this promotion”? Local councillors flagged caravan/campervan parking as a growing issue, particularly “unmanaged” parking in scenic spots (including lakeside areas), and warned it’s causing local frustration and putting pressure on amenities.
What was said, in plain terms: Unmanaged campervan/caravan parking is becoming “a serious problem” in some areas, with councillors reporting that it is increasingly to be found along lakes and other high-amenity locations. Councillors said they’re getting complaints from residents about inappropriate parking and pressure on local facilities, and that the situation needs planned, serviced, designated locations rather than ad hoc stopping.
Council officials responded that a dedicated campervan and caravanning strategy is being developed, backed by‘external funding‘, to ensure facilities are properly located/designed and to curb unmanaged activity.
We will be speaking more about these failures in the coming days, so do stay tuned. See Part II HERE.
It started, as these things always do, with a local lad who had no reason to tell fibs, and every reason to be believed, because he said it with absolute conviction while pointing at the pile of rubble like he’d personally witnessed the fall of the ancient walls of Jericho.
“It was a pigeon,” he announced, solemn as a coroner. “Not your regular one either. Low-flying it was, doing eighty, like a feathery meteor.”
With the New Thurles Car Park entrance now widened, locals will also have noticed that the centre island/median at the mouth of the entrance has, for some time passed, also been demolished, leaving a cleaner, straighter run at the target.
Now, anyone with a bit of sense would have laughed, but the trouble was, the scene had the exact energy of a freak incident. The corner of the wall looked as if it had been clipped by something with intent. The slabs were splayed out like dominoes and there, faintly, on the remaining stone, was a dusty smear that could’ve been… anything. Cement, chalk, or, if you were inclined toward truth, pigeon ‘powder’.
The lad described it in detail, because once a man says “eighty,” he most certainly owes you a full reconstruction.
He’d been walking past with a breakfast roll, half thinking about nothing, when the air changed, that strange hush you get before something ridiculous happens. Then he heard it: a sound like a wet umbrella opening in a gale, followed by a “thwack” so crisp it could’ve been a cue in a slapstick film.
And out of the morning light came that pigeon; not flapping so much as committing to the air. Wings tucked. Head down. The posture of a creature that had made a decision and was seeing it through kamikaze style, consequences be damned. It skimmed the footpath at shin height, missing a drainpipe by inches, before striking the corner of the wall, with the confidence of something that had fully comprehensive insurance.
There was a split second of silence, then the wall gave a small, offended cough before the corner exploded. A puff of dust. A clatter of stone. Bits of dry mortar letting go. The slab on top shifted with a slow, dramatic slide, not fast, but certain, the way a decision, finally made, gathers momentum.
The pigeon, according to the lad, didn’t even look back. It hit, rebounded slightly, before landing on the path with a soft, insulting plop. It shook itself once, the way a dog shakes off rain, except this was more like a boxer loosening his shoulders after a solid clean punch, and then it waddled away. Yes, waddled. Not stumbled. Not fled. Not panicked. It waddled away with the leisurely swagger of a creature heading to a meeting that it was already late for, as if collapsing masonry was just part of its morning routine.
A split second of silence, then the wall gave a small, offended cough, before the corner exploded.
Our lad swore there was a moment of eye contact too, the pigeon looking at him with one eye, giving him that sideways judgement look, which sent a message; “You saw nothing”.
He tried, naturally, to tell people immediately. But you can’t just say “pigeon doing eighty” without consequences. The first person he told laughed so hard they nearly swallowed their Voopoo Vape. The second person said, “It was probably a van.” The third said, “That wall’s been in a bad way for years. Sure they forgot to add water to the cement”
And that was the thing, the wall had been in a bad way. Everyone knew it. Old stone, dry mortar, a corner that had taken a full two years of weather and knocks from the occasional careless wheelie bin. So the sceptics had an easy explanation. But the lad had his own, far more convincing logic, “A van would’ve left tyre marks,” he said. “A car would’ve stopped.”“A pigeon? A pigeon has no paperwork. No road tax, no NCT or comprehensive insurance details. No apology. It just flew off… gone.”
Soon the story grew legs, as stories do. Someone said the pigeon had been training, drafting behind Local Link buses, doing sprints off rooftops, building speed like an athlete. Another said it wasn’t a pigeon at all, others felt that this “grey blur,” was possibly a pigeon that had eaten something experimental behind a local chipper. A woman up the road claimed she’d seen a flock in formation earlier that week, flying like they were under command.
One fella, too confident by half, suggested it was an “urban falcon strike” until he was reminded falcons don’t waddle. And then, right when everyone had almost settled back into boring explanations, a child walked past, looked at the rubble and said: “That’s where the pigeon landed, isn’t it.” Because there, on the cleanest slab, plain as a signature, was a small white mark, ‘pigeon powder’. Not conclusive, not scientific, but deeply, spiritually… pigeonish.
By lunchtime today, the pigeon had become a local legend. People started blaming it for other things. A dent in their gate? (The pigeon). A missing wheelie bin? (The pigeon). A traffic cone mysteriously stuck up a tree? (The pigeon). A cracked phone screen? (Sure you know yourself). But our lad, he stayed firm, unwavering. “Eighty,” he’d repeat, as if defending a sworn statement. “Low-flying. Like a feathery meteor. It hit it and walked away.” He paused, then added the final detail, the one that made you almost believe him: “And the worst part is,” he said, “it looked disappointed the wall didn’t put up more of a fight.”
Pigeon or no pigeon, after today’s minor earthquake, the remaining wall line now matches neatly with the partially demolished left-hand side of the entry, giving the whole approach a more uniform look. In the spirit of getting it repaired properly, maybe it’s time to float a modest (and no doubt wildly popular) idea; another 5% on business rates ring-fenced specifically for repairs, which, no doubt would make this wall look like it was only built once, and had been actually done properly in the first instance.
“The first, the gentle Shure (Suir) that making way By sweet Clonmell (Clonmel), adornes (adorns) rich Waterford; …” (Excerpt from poem by Edmund Spenser’s ‘Irish rivers’.)
♦ Note: It should be noted that in 2026 Cahir Castle has since been fully restored and has now become a major tourist attraction in Cahir, Co. Tipperary. However this was not the case in 1912 when McCraith published her book.
Cahir Castle as depicted by the artist James Stark Fleming (1834-1922).
The Suir – From Its Source To The Sea.
Cahir Castle rises on an island in the Suir, and commands the bridge in the middle of the town. This old ivy-clad Butler stronghold is probably the best example of late feudal architecture in Ireland. It was built in the fifteenth, or early in the sixteenth, century, and has remained in the family of its builders ever since.
The Butlers ceased to live in their castle about a hundred and fifty years ago. It has not been inhabited since a company of infantry was quartered there in the days of the late Earl of Glengall (he it was who gave the site for the present barracks, about a mile outside the town, formerly used for Cavalry, and now used for Field Artillery). For over a century the Castle has undergone no structural alteration, but remains an eloquent witness of the life led long ago in Ireland by a Lord of the Pale.
Centuries before the Butlers built the present Castle; centuries before even Conor O’Brien, Lord of Thomond, founded his castle there in 1142, the rock in the Suir upon which it stands was regarded as a natural point of vantage, to be defended by a “dun,” or fort. Its very name in Irish, Cathair-Duine-Iascaigh, (Irish – “the stone stronghold of the fish-abounding fort), is a word-history.
An old Irish MS♦., the Book of Lecan, records the destruction of this fort of Cathair Curreagh in the third century.
♦ Note: “MS” is the standard abbreviation for “Manuscript” (from Latin manu scriptus, “written by hand”)
This is the outline of the romantic story. A relative of Curreagh Lifé was killed by Finn MacRadamain, chief of the district surrounding Cathair, the modern Cahir. In revenge, Curreagh Lifé murdered Finn’s mistress, Badamair, who had her dwelling on the Cathair-Duine-Iascaigh, whence she supplied Finn with food and clothing, no doubt of her own catching and weaving. After murdering her, Curreagh plundered the fort, and escaped away beyond the river Bannow towards Waterford. Finn pursued him. After many days he got sight of Curreagh in the distance. Thereupon Finn pronounced an incantation over his spear, and hurled it at Curreagh, who was in the midst of a group of friends. Nevertheless, the spear found its way truly to Curreagh’s heart and killed him.
The Brehon Laws refer to this fort of Cathair, and Geoffrey Keating states that, among many other royal residences, Brian Boru fortified and used this fort of Cathair also.
When the Anglo-Normans came first to Ireland, Knockgraffon, and not Cahir, was the principal place in the Barony, which passed, about 1215, to one of Henry II’s knights, Philip of Worcester. From him it passed to his nephew, William, whose great-granddaughter brought it to the de Berminghams by her marriage with Milo de Bermingham. In 1332 the Barony reverted to the Crown on William de Bermingham’s attainder. But the English King was little bettered by Cahir. As has been said already, Bryan O’Brien and his Irish had by 1332 overrun and re-conquered Tipperary.
However, in 1325 the King granted the Barony to James, Earl of Ormonde, and to Elizabeth, his wife. James Cildare, the natural son of this Earl, by Catherine Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Desmond, has generally been recognised as the founder of the Cahir branch of the Butlers. Since he, or his successor, quartered the de Bermingham arms with his, there was probably also a prudent alliance with the previous owners.
The new Lords of Cahir held an equivocal position. They occupied the borderland between the two great warring houses of Butler (Ormonde) and Fitzgerald (Kildare). Butlers by descent, Fitzgeralds by marriage and interest, they contrived throughout the Barons’ War, and the fiercest struggles of the sixteenth century, to retain their estates amid the ruin of their confederates. Perhaps the position of their Castle helped them, for an old record says:
“In the mydst of ye ryver Suyre lyeth an Ilaund, ye same a natural rock, and upon yt a Castle, which, although yt may not be built with any greate arte, yet is ye seite such by nature that yt may be said to be inexpugnable.”
Cahir Castle has changed little during the centuries. Today it closely resembles its appearance in 1599, as pictured in the Pacata Hibernia ♦.
♦ Note: Pacata Hibernia (Latin for “Pacified Ireland”) is a significant 17th-century historical work by Sir Thomas Stafford detailing the Elizabethan Wars in Ireland, particularly the campaign in Munster under Sir George Carew, offering a contemporary, soldier’s perspective with valuable maps and plans of Irish towns and fortifications. First published in 1633, it serves as a primary source for understanding the final, bloody stages of Gaelic Irish resistance against English rule, culminating in the Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.
Instead of at once attacking O’Neill in the North, those of the Irish Council who had estates to lose in the South persuaded Essex to lead his army into Munster. Having been defeated near Maryborough, Essex marched to Kilkenny, thence to Clonmel, and so on to Cahir.
Reynolds, secretary to the Earl of Essex, describes Cahir as “the only famous Castle of Ireland which was thought impregnable; it is the bulwark for Munster, and a safe retreat for all the agents of Spain and Rome.” The Butlers of Cahir were staunch for Hugh O’Neill. Cahir Castle, therefore, Essex attacked.
Encouraged by Hugh O’Neill’s victories, and expecting reinforcements from Mitchelstown, those “heathens,” as the English writer courteously termed the garrison, refused to surrender. Thereupon Essex put his cannon into position, and began a vigorous siege. Despite wide breaches in their walls the garrison held out bravely for ten days, until they found that their expected reinforcements had been cut off. Despairing, the garrison attempted to make a sortie and to vacate the Castle under cover of darkness. It was a desperate endeavour, and was discovered by the besiegers. Eighty of the garrison were slaughtered, and the English took the Castle.
Essex re-garrisoned Cahir with English troops, left his wounded there, and went on to Clonmel. It was his first success, and his last, in Ireland.
In spite of this armed resistance, the Lord of Cahir managed to keep his Castle and lands from confiscation. This was through the influence of the head of the Butlers, Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, called “the Queen’s Black Husband” from his colouring and his Sovereign’s marked preference.
During the Cromwellian Wars and, later, during the Revolution, the luck of the Butlers of Cahir held. The Baron of Cahir was a minor during the wars of 1641–50, his guardian being George Mathew, a half-brother of the Earl of Ormonde. In 1647, previous to the coming to Ireland of Cromwell in person, Lord Inchiquin, ‘Murrough of the Burnings‘, (Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin♦), who was then fighting on the side of the Parliamentarians, invested Cahir Castle. The siege was one of hours only. The Castle was promptly handed over to Inchiquin, and a flimsy story put about to shelter Mathew’s cowardice; or was it his prudence?
♦ Note: The slaughter of the garrison at Cashel and the subsequent devastation of Catholic-held Munster earned Inchiquin the Irish nickname, Murchadh na Dóiteáin or “Murrough of the Burnings”.
Cromwell himself appeared before Cahir Castle on February 24th, 1650, and again George Mathew surrendered without a shot having been fired. One of the conditions of surrender was that: “The Governor may enjoy his estate, which he has as his jointure, and the wardship of the heir of Cahir”.
Although the Butler estates were surveyed by Petty♦during the Commonwealth for that object, they were not actually allotted to soldiers or adventurers; and at the Restoration, in 1662, Ormonde had little difficulty in reinstating his kinsman, “the heir of Cahir.”
♦ Note: Sir William Petty (1623–1687), an English scientist, physician, and political economist who was a key figure in the Cromwellian land confiscations in Ireland. He was responsible for overseeing the famous Down Survey of Ireland in the 1650s, which was the first detailed, large-scale land survey in the world.
The Butler luck, or prudence, held also during the Revolution. Thomas, seventh Baron Cahir, fought for James II on the bloody and disastrous field of Aughrim♦, and was outlawed in 1691. But, two years later, his outlawry was reversed and his estates restored. Being known as strong Catholics, with Jacobite leanings, the Lords of Cahir lived abroad during the eighteenth century.
♦ Note: Aughrim, County Galway. The battle was one of the bloodiest ever fought in Britain and Ireland; 7,000 people were killed.
By the death of Pierce, eleventh Baron, in 1788, the old Butler line became extinct. But a claimant appeared in the person of Richard Butler of Glengall, who derived his descent from Sir Theobald Butler, Baron of Cahir, in the time of Elizabeth. Richard Butler was married to a niece of Lord Chancellor Clare, and, as legal difficulties were thus smoothed over, he succeeded as twelfth Baron Cahir. He was afterwards created first Earl of Glengall. His son, the second Earl, died in 1858 without a male heir. The Barony of Cahir fell into abeyance again, and the Earldom became extinct.
The present representative of the Butlers of Cahir is the last Earl of Glengall’s daughter, Lady Margaret Charteris, to whom belongs the beautiful park through which the Suir runs for over two miles, together with many acres of surrounding mountain and valley.
Cahir Castle is in excellent preservation. It still serves for flower shows and other gatherings. The Butlers migrated, first, to Cahir House, a Georgian mansion, overlooking the Market Square on one side, and the lovely demesne upon the other, and, later, to the Lodge, on the opposite bank of the Suir.
Cahir Park.
The beautiful green banks of the River Suir are nowhere more attractive than in Cahir Park. To appreciate the place properly, you really have to see it for yourself.
Fortunately, the park is open to pedestrians. Private carriages and anglers can also enter, but only with permits, which (at the time of writing) were available from the Estate Offices in Castle Street.
It’s hard to say when Cahir Park looks its best: on a hot summer’s day, when cattle stand knee-deep in the broad, clear river and the trees and pastures are at their richest “living green”; or in late autumn, when the scarlet coats of huntsmen and the dappled white, black and tan of the foxhounds come and go through groves of golden oaks and coppices, with yellow bracken underfoot and laurels still keeping their summer colour.
In places the riverbanks become almost steep, and a graceful bridge spans the Suir at Kilcommon. From there you can reach a picturesque thatched cottage, built as a tea-house♦, and once a favourite rendezvous-is reached.
♦ Note: “Picturesque thatched cottage, built as a tea-house” refers to the ‘Swiss Cottage’ and again, is today 2026 also fully restored and a major tourists attraction. END
Former Ursuline Convent Thurles pupil, Ms Jessie Buckley, wins Best Actress at 2026 Critics Choice Awards.
The Ursuline Convent Thurles community has welcomed news that past pupil Ms Jessie Buckley has been named ‘Best Actress’ at the 2026 Critics Choice Awards, for her performance in ‘Hamnet’, as the ceremony offers an early marker for the months ahead, in the international awards season.
Ms Buckley’s win came at the Critics Choice Awards, hosted by Chelsea Handler, which recognise the year’s best in film, television and streaming, as voted on by critics and journalists.
On the television side, acclaimed British drama Adolescence led the limited series categories, securing four awards. Owen Cooper, aged 16, won Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series, while co-stars Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty received Best Actor in a Limited Series and Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series, respectively.
Ms Jessie Buckley attended Ursuline Secondary School/Boarding School here in Thurles, where she took part in school productions, and the school and wider Thurles community have previously celebrated her achievements on stage and screen.
Extract from a publication by L. M. McCraith, [Mrs Laura Mary McCraith-Blakeney (born 1870)], originally published in 1912. (See Part One HERE)
“The first, the gentle Shure (Suir) that making way By sweet Clonmell (Clonmel), adornes (adorns) rich Waterford; …” (Excerpt from poem Edmund Spenser’s ‘Irish rivers’.)
Holy Cross. Beyond Thurles, the Suir, now a broad and shallow stream, flows lazily, through sedge and reeds and fringes of flowering water-weeds, between some of the finest pasture lands in Munster.
About three miles south-west of Thurles, on the right bank, low down by the river-side, stands the lovely ruin of the once far-famed Abbey of Holy Cross. [ Note: This building has since been extensively restored to its former beauty and serenity.]
The once ruin of Holycross Abbey. [Artist James Stark Fleming (1834-1922)]
This Abbey was founded in 1168, for Benedictines, by that indefatigable church-builder, Donal Mór O’Brien, King of Munster. The original charter is still in existence, by which it appears that, about 1182, the Abbey was transferred from the Black Monks to the White, that is, from the Benedictines to the Cistercians.
Early in the twelfth century the Pope, Paschal II, gave to the grandson of Brian Boru, Donough O’Brien, a bit of the True Cross. It was magnificently enshrined and set about with precious stones, and confided to the care of the Cistercians. In 1214 this Abbey was re-built, and about that time the sacred relic, which gave its name to Holy Cross, came to its resting-place on the banks of the Suir.
This relic, being amongst the most revered in Christendom, the Abbey was, for over three and a half centuries, one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage in Ireland. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the English described the relic as “the idol which the Irish more superstitiously reverence than all the idolatries in Ireland.”
In 1600, the great Hugh O’Neill came in state to Holy Cross to visit the holy relic, for reasons no less political than pious. He marched through the centre of the island at the head of his troops, a kind of royal progress, which he thought fit to call a pilgrimage to Holy Cross. He held princely state there, concerted measures with the southern lords, and distributed a manifesto announcing himself as the accredited Defender of the Faith.
In 1603, Red Hugh O’Donnell came to Holy Cross, on his way to the disastrous battle of Kinsale, and demanded that the fragment of the True Cross should be borne out to him at the west door, to bless him on his way.
The Abbey of Holy Cross was suppressed in 1536, at the break-up of the monastic orders in Ireland. In 1563, Elizabeth conferred the Abbey lands upon Gerald, Earl of Ormonde. The Butlers remained friendly, if not faithful, to the old faith, and the line of Abbots continued at Holy Cross until as late as 1700. The relic also passed eventually into Butler hands. It was exposed for public veneration for the last time in Holy Cross Abbey about the year 1632. In that year, Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormonde, seeing his grandson, the first Duke, had become a Protestant, confided the relic to Catholic keeping until such time as the House of Ormonde should return to the old faith.
Subsequently, it passed through various hands, until in 1809 it was given to the Catholic Bishop of Cork, who deposited the relic in the Ursuline Convent in Cork. It continues in the Ursulines’ keeping, having moved with them to Blackrock.
Perhaps the most interesting thing which remains in ruined Holy Cross Abbey is the lovely little pillared shrine between the two side chapels in the north transept. This arcade is a fine example of thirteenth-century carving. Its pointed arches spring from a double row of beautifully twisted pillars. Its roof is a marvel of graceful groining. Every variety of delightful detail has been lavished upon this little sanctuary. Its sides are elaborately adorned with fine carving.
The design of two doves and two owls, kissing, is repeated upon the panels, and the beautiful Gothic details show a French influence. The elaborate wealth of detail and the loving workmanship point to some special, and important, purpose for this unique feature. It has been suggested that here the dead Cistercians lay before burial. But surely not a dead brother, but rather the Relic, the True Cross itself, occupied such a shrine. Was it within this greatly ornamented little arcade that the Relic was preserved when not exposed upon the Gospel side of the High Altar? This is, however, a matter of controversy.
Another matter of keen controversy is “the Tomb of the Good Woman’s Son.” Who was the “Good Woman”? Why are the Royal Arms of England carved on the shields between the arches of the canopy of the tomb, together with those of Ormonde and Desmond? Was the “Good Woman” an English Queen, her son a Plantagenet Prince? Was he “Pierce the Fair,” son of Isabella of Angoulême, the widow of King John, by her second husband, Le Brun, Count of La Marche, and half-brother of King Henry III? His death is recorded by the Four Masters as having occurred in Ireland in 1233.
Many maintain that this canopied monument is nothing more than a beautifully elaborate three-seated sedilia for the priests. Others suggest that it is the tomb of one who re-built the Abbey of Holy Cross in a far finer style than that of King Donald, at the close of the fourteenth century. The position, at the north side of the High Altar, is that usually assigned to founders.
Legend and tradition tell a more mysterious and interesting tale. The personality of “the Good Woman’s Son” is sufficiently interesting to make it worthwhile to quote the local story, as told by the custodian of the ruins, in her own words:
“The King of England’s son he was, and he was sent over to Ireland to collect the Peter’s Pence for the Pope. Now, there was a family in these parts in those times by name Fogerty, and they knew of all the money the young Prince had with him. So they followed him to a lonely place, and set upon him and killed him there, and stole the money. Then they buried the body in the soft ground in the wood, without waiting to know was the life gone out of it altogether or not.
Now, in the Abbey of Holy Cross at this time there was an old monk, and he was blind. One night he dreamed a dream. He dreamed that the Good Woman, his mother, had placed upon the young prince’s stone here, (set in the corner of the High Altar, of course, it is only set up by the Board of Works to show where the High Altar stood, for the dear knows where the real stones were thrown to by the soldiers when they were quartered in the ruins a hundred years ago), and there is a little round hole right through that stone. That hole was bored through the stone by the dropping of a tear. For seven generations they repented, and as the tear wore the hole through the slab of stone the curse wore away from the Fogertys.“
So some say, anyway, and a priest wrote it all down in a book lately, so I’m told, and sure isn’t it as likely as not it is true, after all?
The chief beauty of Holy Cross Abbey which remains are its windows. Their tracery is perhaps unmatched in perfection in Ireland, and its elaboration points to the fourteenth, rather than the twelfth, century. No doubt they belong to the period of the Abbey’s splendid restoration, whenever exactly that took place. The reticulated (or “honeycomb”) east window is notably fine. It is particularly beautiful when observed from the opposite bank of the Suir, from which the most picturesque view of Holy Cross Abbey may be obtained.
The plan of the Church of the Holy Cross is cruciform, with double side chapels. Quaint bits of carving here and there have escaped the hand of the spoiler and the ignorant. But for many years the Abbey passed from one to another, and fell into a lamentable condition. About thirty years ago the Board of Works took over the ruin, restored it to some decency and order, and ensured its preservation. The cloisters, however, are in private hands, and the cloister garth is used as a croquet ground.
The site of Holy Cross is unimpressive. Thick groves of trees now surround the ruins, which are of great extent, and in remarkably good preservation, all things considered. Little houses cluster round the approaches to the Abbey, as they may have done in the monastic days. It is not easy to picture the stately processions which must have crossed the old bridge and wound their way to the west door.
Holy Cross has still about it a peaceful, graceful, scholastic charm hard to describe or define, not easy to account for. Perhaps the aura of calm, holy, austere lives still lingers, like the perfume in dead rose-leaves. There is a homeliness about Holy Cross, for all that its rule was Cistercian and its Abbots Lords of Parliament and Vicars-General of the Order, as well as “Earls of Holy Cross.”
The Suir at Holy Cross is spanned by an ancient bridge, which was built in 1626 by James Butler, Baron Dunboyne, and his wife Margaret O’Brien, a descendant, doubtless, of King Donald, the Abbey’s founder. Their pious act is recorded in Latin on a carved stone set in the wall facing the ruins. It bears the Butler and O’Brien arms, with the initials of James and Margaret, and a Latin inscription which ends and bids the traveller to say a short prayer that both the builders may escape the Stygian Lake.
It was only natural, in medieval days, that bridge-building should be accounted a blessed and meritorious deed. Women, to whom the difficulties of medieval travelling no doubt came home with special force, were ever foremost in this work in Ireland. The famous and beautiful Margaret O’Carroll, “Áinéigh”(The Bountiful), was long remembered as a builder of bridges, as well as a giver of feasts, in the fifteenth century. In this case, another Margaret evidently followed her example a century later.
END.
Today January 2026 Visiting Tourists Please Note:
Holycross Abbey painstakingly restored in the early 1970s after centuries of ruin.
Still set on the banks of the River Suir, Holycross Abbey today is one of Tipperary’s great places of quiet grandeur; a medieval Cistercian foundation whose clean lines, cloistered calm and finely worked stone immediately draw you in. Painstakingly restored in the early 1970s after centuries of ruin, it has regained the sense of harmony and purpose that shaped it in the first place, still serving today as a living place of worship as well as a welcoming stop for visitors.
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