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CAHIR |
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You're unlikely to miss CAHIR . The town sits on a major crossroads
on the routes between Clonmel, Cork, Cashel and Tipperary. Its castle (daily:
mid-March to mid-June & mid-Sept to mid-Oct 9.30am-5.30pm; mid-June to
mid-Sept 9am-7.30pm; mid-Oct to mid-March 9.30am-4.30pm; £2/¬2.54;
Heritage Card), set on a rocky islet in the River Suir, beside the road
to Cork, is Cahir's outstanding attraction - even the name Cahir means "fort".
In essence the building is Anglo-Norman, and goes back to the thirteenth
and fifteenth centuries, though the virgin appearance of the outer shell
is deceptive, with a good deal of the brickwork dating back to the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Irish chieftain Conor O'Brien
was the first to build a fortress on the rock; but it was the
Anglo-Norman Butlers, the Earls of Ormond, who made this into one of the
most powerful castles in the country. The Earl of Essex showered the
castle with artillery fire in 1599; it got off lightly during the
Cromwellian and Williamite invasions, and gradually fell into ruin until
rejuvenated, along with other town buildings, by the Earl of Glengall in
the mid-nineteenth century. In modern times, the interior has been
uniformly whitewashed and spartanly furnished.
Entrance to the castle is along the side rampart, bringing you into the
confined space of the middle ward , dominated by the three-storey
thirteenth-century keep . The keep itself consists of a portcullis,
vaulted chambers and a round tower containing a prison, accessible
through a trap door. Down to the left, you pass through a gateway topped
by machicolations, musket loops to either side, where sixteenth-century
invaders could have been bombarded with missiles or boiling oil. Beyond
is the much larger outer ward and, at its far end, the cottage built by
the Earl of Glengall. The cottage now houses a video theatre where a
twenty-minute film enthuses rhapsodically on the antiquities of southern
Tipperary.
In the inner ward , two corner towers overlook the road to Cork. The
larger was probably designed to be independently defensible once the
keep had fallen, and it dates from a mixture of periods - straight,
thirteenth-century stone stairs; fifteenth- to sixteenth-century stone
vaulting over the ground-floor main room; and nineteenth-century
renovation work in the Great Hall, whose stepped battlements reflect
sixteenth-century style. The smaller, square tower at the other end of
the ward and the curtain wall date from the nineteenth century, though
with medieval bases. Just to the left of this second tower, steps lead
to the bottom of the well tower, where the castle could safeguard its
water supply during a siege. The informative guided tour of the castle
is well worth taking.
One further building worth seeing is the Swiss Cottage (mid-March &
mid-Oct to Nov Tues-Sun 10am-1pm & 2-4.30pm; April Tues-Sun 10am-1pm &
2-6pm; May to mid-Oct daily 10am-6pm; £2/¬2.54; Heritage Card), a
pleasant one-mile walk along the river from the castle or a short drive
out of Cahir on the Clonmel Road. Probably designed by John Nash, it was
built in 1810 to provide the Earls of Glengall with a lodge of
romanticized - and fashionable - rustic simplicity from which to enjoy
their hunting, shooting and fishing. With its thatched roof and ornate
timberwork it certainly looks the part, and its status as a unique
period piece makes it a popular attraction.
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