Things to Do in Tipperary

Cashel Beyond the Rock: Brú Ború, the Folk Village and the Bolton Library

Most visitors climb the Rock and leave; the town at its foot has a music centre, a folk museum and one of Ireland's great book collections.

Cashel is a town of 4,805 people (2022 census) in the Golden Vale of County Tipperary, and the Rock of Cashel is only part of what it offers. The Irish name Caiseal is given by Wikipedia as meaning “stone ringfort”. The town was the chief residence of the Kings of Munster until 1100, which is why it is called Cashel of the Kings. The Rock itself is one of Ireland’s most visited sites, and our Tipperary castles section covers it; this piece is about the town around it.

Brú Ború

Brú Ború is a cultural and heritage centre at the foot of the Rock, affiliated to Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the movement for Irish traditional music. Tipperary County Council describes it as a regional centre for Comhaltas. It includes a theatre, an exhibition hall, a craft shop, a restaurant, a genealogy service and a session space called the Teach Ceoil, plus a “Sounds of History” audio-visual exhibition.

Its summer programme of music, song and dance is the best-known draw, but listings differ on which nights it runs, so check with Brú Ború for the current season before you travel. Do not rely on older announcements.

Cashel Folk Village

Cashel Folk Village Museum sits at the edge of the town, with a line of sight to the Rock, and is reported to be about 350 metres from the Rock and Brú Ború. Its grounds include a thatched building and a Penal Chapel built with stones from a Franciscan abbey. Exhibits cover Penal Times, the War of Independence, the 1916 Rising and the Great Famine, and there is an audiovisual show. Wikipedia describes the village as containing replica displays of early Irish country life, plus republican monuments. A small family-run museum is a different thing from a heritage centre, so bring curiosity rather than expectations, and check opening times locally.

The GPA Bolton Library

Archbishop Theophilus Bolton founded what became the Bolton Library by combining his own books with about 6,000 bought from the estate of William King, Archbishop of Dublin. It was first the Cashel Diocesan Library, in the Bishop’s Palace. A purpose-built chapter house in the grounds of St John’s Cathedral, designed by the local architect William Tinsley, was completed in 1835.

Renovation began in the 1980s under Dean David Woodworth, with major support from Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA), and in 1986 it was renamed the GPA Bolton Library. The collection holds about 12,000 items, including books from the collections of Catherine of Aragon, Francis Bacon and the atlas-maker Abraham Ortelius, and more than 50 items not recorded anywhere else in the world.

Visitors should know the collection no longer sits in Cashel. It moved to the Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick in 2016, and a recent local press report says the church body and the university have agreed in principle to bring it back once there is a proper space. Check before you go.

Eating and staying

Brú Ború has its own restaurant. The former Church of Ireland archbishop’s palace, built for Bolton and home to the library in its early years, reopened as the Cashel Palace hotel in 2022. Beyond that, we cannot responsibly list shops or restaurants that may have changed hands; ask at the visitor point in town or check current listings. Cashel is on the M8 Dublin–Cork motorway, which makes it an easy stop. The nearest railway station is Cahir, 17 km away, according to Wikipedia.

Cashel from Ardfinnan

Cashel is about 26 km, or 25 minutes by road, from Ardfinnan, itself a Norman castle on the Suir worth seeing from the village bridge. A good day runs from Ardfinnan to Cashel via Cahir, with the Rock in the morning and the town in the afternoon. More ideas are in things to do near Ardfinnan and the attractions of Tipperary.