Rock of Cashel

The Archbishop Who Removed the Cashel Cathedral Roof Is Not Warmly Remembered

In the 18th century, Archbishop Price had the roof of the Rock of Cashel’s Gothic cathedral removed to avoid paying a repair tax. The building has been roofless ever since, which may or may not have been what the Archbishop intended, but is certainly the outcome. The scale of the remaining walls indicates the ambitions of the medieval archbishopric: this was one of the most important ecclesiastical centres in Ireland, and the building reflects that before Price’s intervention reduced it to a photogenic ruin.

The Rock of Cashel rises about 60 metres above the Tipperary plain, a limestone outcrop that was the seat of the kings of Munster from the 4th or 5th century CE. According to tradition, St. Patrick came here to convert King Aengus in 448 CE. By the 12th century it was the principal ecclesiastical site in Munster, and the surviving buildings date primarily from this period. Adult entry costs EUR 9. Allow 90 minutes to two hours.

Cormac’s Chapel

The most significant building on the rock is Cormac’s Chapel, built between 1127 and 1134 by King Cormac MacCarthy. It represents one of the earliest and most sophisticated examples of Irish Romanesque architecture. The two square towers flanking the east end are unusual in Irish building of the period. The interior contains substantial remains of 12th-century fresco painting, obscured by later rendering and revealed during 20th-century conservation – fragments, but among the oldest surviving frescoes in Ireland.

The carved tympanum above the north door depicts a centaur and a lion, neither obviously Christian in iconography, which has generated considerable academic debate about Norman influence on the design team.

The Rest of the Complex

The Gothic cathedral – whose missing roof was Archbishop Price’s gift to posterity – is a large roofless structure with substantial walls and carved stonework on surviving arches. The Hall of the Vicars Choral at the site’s entrance houses St. Patrick’s Cross (a 12th-century high cross) and early Christian stone grave slabs. The Round Tower, 28 metres tall and built in the 12th century, is intact to the top.

Hore Abbey, a 13th-century Cistercian monastery ruin a short walk from the base of the rock, is freely accessible and sees a fraction of the rock’s visitors. It sits in a field with the rock as a dramatic backdrop and gives context for the wider medieval religious landscape of Munster.

Getting There

Cashel is on the M8 between Cork and Dublin. Dublin is approximately two hours by road; Cork is about one hour. The town has no train station; the nearest is Thurles (20 minutes by car). Bus Eireann runs services from both Dublin and Cork. The Cashel Palace Hotel in a Queen Anne building from 1732, recently renovated, runs approximately EUR 200 to 350 per night. Mikey Ryan’s Bar on Main Street is reliably good for lunch.