Qualla: Clonmel

Clonmel: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Honey Meadow. That is what the name means in Irish - Cluain Meala - and the soil really is that rich. Clonmel sits in the valley of the River Suir between the Comeragh Mountains and the Golden Vale, the county town and the largest settlement in Tipperary. The story Cluain Meala usually tells about itself, though, is one of resistance. When Oliver Cromwell brought the New Model Army to its walls in May 1650, he expected a sack like Drogheda and Wexford. He got the worst defeat of his Irish campaign instead. Inside the walls, the Ulster general Hugh Dubh O'Neill was running out of ammunition; the townspeople were said to be firing silver bullets. He held the breach long enough to slip out under cover of darkness with his garrison intact.

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Clonmel: Walls and Gates

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The medieval town was protected by walls, a small fragment of which still stands near Old St. Mary's Church on the hillside above O'Connell Street. The church itself goes back to the 14th century or earlier; it was fortified in its time, partly because Clonmel was strategically i...

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Clonmel: Cromwell at the Gate

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cromwell arrived in May 1650 and spent weeks battering the walls with cannon. When the breach opened, his soldiers came through it confident of a quick victory, but Hugh Dubh O'Neill had built earthworks behind the gap and channels of fire to funnel the attackers into a killing g...

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Clonmel: The Young Irelanders

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In October 1848, after the failed rising near Ballingarry, the leaders of the Young Ireland movement were brought to Clonmel courthouse to stand trial. The case drew journalists from across Britain and Ireland for weeks. William Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, Terence MacM...

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Clonmel: James Connolly's Founding

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 28 May 1912, three men met in Clonmel - James Connolly, James Larkin, and William O'Brien - and founded what is now the Labour Party of Ireland. They wanted a political wing for the Irish Trades Union Congress, and they chose Clonmel for the inaugural conference partly because...

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Clonmel: Honey Meadow, Modern Town

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Modern Clonmel runs across both banks of the Suir but lives mostly on the north side. The Comeraghs rise to the south and Slievenamon to the north-east; everything in between is the rich pasture of the Golden Vale. Bulmers Irish Cider is brewed just east of the town, and Merck & ...

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