Discover Cashel

Cashel of the Kings

Cashel takes its name from the Irish Caiseal, a stone ringfort, and the fort in question is the Rock that dominates the town. For around four hundred years it was the royal seat of the Eoghanachta kings of Munster, and tradition holds that St Patrick baptised a king here in the fifth century. Around 1101 the king of Munster, Muirchertach Ua Briain, granted the Rock to the church, and over the following centuries it became the great ecclesiastical complex you see today: the round tower, Cormac's Chapel with its Romanesque carving, the 13th-century cathedral, and a replica of St Patrick's Cross in the grounds.

The town that grew up below the Rock is a quiet Golden Vale market town on what was for centuries the main road between Dublin and Cork. The M8 motorway now bypasses it, which has left the long main street to the locals, the pubs, the cafes and the visitors who come up to the Rock. At the foot of the hill is Bru Boru, the Comhaltas heritage centre with its summer trad sessions, and on Main Street the Cashel Palace, a Georgian archbishop's residence reopened in 2022 as a five-star hotel with a Michelin star in its dining room. Cashel rewards the visitor who stays past the Rock.