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THURLES |
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North of Cashel, both the Suir itself and the attractions along its
banks wane. The river passes through the larger towns of Thurles and
Templemore, though its source in the Devil's Bit Mountain falls short of
the little town of Roscrea . Thurles is on the main Limerick-Dublin
train line; Roscrea is more easily accessed by bus, being on the main
bus route between those two cities.
THURLES is of very little interest in itself, but if you're passing
through and in need of refreshment you might want to check out the Dwan
Brewery & Restaurant in The Mall off Liberty Square, a modern micro-brewery,
giving the town's social scene something of a lift, and offering a
markedly contemporary barfood menu. Just four miles south of town, Holy
Cross Abbey sits beside a broad stretch of the Suir and is well worth a
visit. Founded in 1180, restored significantly in the fifteenth century
and then left derelict for four hundred years, the abbey was totally
restored between 1971 and 1985 and is now a thriving parish church as
well as a tourist attraction. You really need to see photographs of the
period before restoration to appreciate the significance of this - they
suggest that every other ruin you've seen could as easily be so
converted. Holy Cross always had singular importance as a centre of
pilgrimage, however, claiming to possess a piece of the True Cross . The
splinter was reckoned to have been given to Murtagh O'Brien, King of
Munster, by Pope Paschal II in 1110. At the turn of the seventeenth
century both O'Donnell and O'Neill, the Ulster chiefs, stopped off to
venerate this relic on their way to Kinsale to meet the French - no
doubt hoping they'd be rewarded with a victory over Elizabeth I.
The interior of the church has been fully restored, though here there's
been no particular attempt at period accuracy; virtually every wall and
pillar has been whitewashed, and all the pews have been varnished.
Nevertheless, it's rewarding to see the stone ribbing of the vaulted
roofs and most particularly the undamaged fifteenth-century sedilia in
the chancel area, the finest in the country. The sedilia, recessed stone
seats for the celebrants of the Mass, is of a hard limestone shaped into
cusped arches and crowned with crockets, showing decorative friezework
as well as the English royal crest and the escutcheon of the Earls of
Ormond. In the transept to the left of the nave, you'll find one of
Ireland's rare medieval frescoes , this one showing a Norman hunting
scene painted in browns, reds and greens. The exterior of the church has
a startling full-length slate roof, which reaches down to the cloister
pillars. Though the church itself is open year-round, the clositer and
its ranges have limited opening times (mid-April to Oct Mon-Sat
10am-6pm, Sun 11am-6pm). There's an informal tourist information centre
with variable opening hours, a coffee shop and a religious crafts shop
within the abbey complex.
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