DON’T ROCK UP IN TIPPERARY – UNLESS REGGIE SENT YOU
THE people at the Rock of Cashel (pictured left) have written to tell me that if members of the public want to visit Cormac’s Chapel in the complex, it’s by guided tour only. So, no wandering about on your own. None of this business of saying, ‘Oh, Reggie down at the office told me it would be OK.’
Word in your ear: that’s one I use myself fairly regularly and it has a surprisingly good success rate. It’s very handy if I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be — snooping about in closed-off areas. I like to do that — particularly the private areas of stately homes or the fenced off areas of ornamental gardens etc.
The Reggie line works nearly 20 per cent of the time, I’d estimate. ‘Sean up at the depot said it was OK,’ also works from time to time.
But the Rock itself really is quite something.
You may have seen it so many times that you are inured to its beauty and significance, but it really is up there with all the great castles of the world.
Most people in Ireland have probably at least seen the Rock of Cashel, if not actually visited it.
No matter, this remarkable outcrop of limestone rising some 300 feet above the plain of Tipperary and crowned with its magnificent group of ruins is a grade A sight.
The Rock was the seat of Munster kings from about the end of the 4th century until 1101.
It was here that St Patrick reputedly preached his ‘shamrock sermon’ — although, spoiler alert, grave doubts exist that this particular lesson ever took place.
Famous names don’t finish with St Patrick. The world’s first peeler, Robert Peel, was MP for the area in 1809. The seat was purchased for him by his father. Yep, a copper always knows a good thing when he sees it.
Along Camus Road in Cashel you get a good view of Cormac’s Chapel — visits by booking only, mind — with its two towers, flanked by remains of the first cathedral.
Venture a bit further up Mountjudkin Road for another view.
The sky might not always be a brilliant blue — often it’s the same colour as the walls of the castle, but no matter what the weather, the atmosphere is little short of magical.
From the top of the Rock, the fertile plains of Tipperary spread out towards the Comeragh mountains in the south-west, and to the southeast the Galtee Mountains.
According to legend it was atop this rock that Patrick looked round his See, considered his options, and decided to head northwards. Reggie in the office probably pointed him in the right direction.