Things to do
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Cashel Palace Hotel
The Queen Anne archbishop's palace of 1732 on the main street, reopened in 2022 after a long restoration, with a walled garden that grows the hops Arthur Guinness is said to have taken his first cuttings from. A private path from the garden climbs to the rock.
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Hore Abbey
A Cistercian abbey of 1272 in the pasture below the rock, roofless and unstaffed, and the place the rock is photographed from at dusk. It is reached on a farm track and there is no fee or gate.
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Rock of Cashel
A round tower of about 1100, Cormac's Chapel with the only surviving Romanesque wall paintings in Ireland, and a roofless thirteenth-century cathedral, all on one limestone crag above the plain. Cormac's Chapel is entered only on a timed guided tour with numbers capped to protect the paintings.
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Swiss Cottage
A thatched cottage orné of about 1810 attributed to John Nash, built for the Butlers as a place to play at rustic life, with no two windows alike and Dufour wallpaper inside. Entry is by guided tour and the walk from Cahir along the river takes half an hour.
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Athassel Priory
The largest medieval priory in Ireland by area, an Augustinian house of about 1200 on the Suir near Golden, now a roofless sprawl of nave, cloister and gatehouse reached across a field and a stile. There is no car park, no fee and rarely anyone there.
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Cahir Castle
One of the largest and best preserved castles in Ireland, on a rock island in the Suir, taken by Essex with artillery in 1599 and holding one of the few original portcullises left in the country. It is twenty minutes south of Cashel.