Rising high above the fertile Plain of Tipperary, the Rock of Cashel is one of Ireland’s most historic and evocative sights. Seat of the ancient kings of Munster (AD 300-1100), this is where St. Patrick baptized King Aengus in about AD 450. Strategically located and perfect for fortification, the Rock was fought over by local clans for hundreds of years. Finally, in 1101, clever Murtagh O’Brien gave the Rock to the Church.
His seemingly benevolent donation increased his influence with the Church, while preventing his rivals, the powerful McCarthy clan, from regaining possession of the Rock.
As Cashel evolved into an ecclesiastical center, Iron Age ring forts and thatch dwellings gave way to the majestic stone church buildings enjoyed by us visitors today.
Nowhere else in Ireland can you better see the evolution of Irish devotion expressed in stone. This large lump of rock is a pedestal supporting a compact tangle of three dramatic architectural styles: early Christian (round tower and St. Patrick’s high cross), Romanesque (Cormac’s Chapel), and Gothic (the main cathedral).
Hall of the Vicars Choral – This is the cellar of the youngest building on the Rock (early 1400s). This would have been the storage room for the vicars (minor clerics) appointed to sing during cathedral services.
Today it contains a sparse collection of artifacts (some copies) associated with the religious site. Glass cases display brooches and primitive axes, while the walls are hung with stone slab carvings. The impressively ornate shrine bell of St. Patrick is a reproduction (the bell would not have been used by him but rather dedicated to him centuries later).
The Great Hall is adorned with a big brown tapestry. Vicars were granted nearby lands by the archbishop and lived comfortably here, with a large fireplace and white, lime-washed walls (to reflect light and act as a natural disinfectant that discouraged bugs). Window seats gave the blessedly literate vicars the best light to read by. The furniture is original, but the colorfully ornamented oak timber roof is a reconstruction, built to medieval specifications using wooden dowels instead of nails. The large wall tapestry shows King Solomon with the Queen of Sheba.
St. Patrick’s Cross – St. Patrick’s baptized King Aengus on the Rock of Cashel in about AD 450. This is a copy of the 12th-century cross carved to celebrate the handing over of the Rock to the Church 650 years after St. Patrick’s visit. Typical Irish high crosses use a ring around the cross head to support its arms and to symbolize the sun (making Christianity more appealing to the sun-worshipping Celts). But instead, this cross uses the Latin design: the weight of the arms was supported by two vertical beams on each side of the main shaft, representing the two criminals who were crucified beside Christ (today only one of these supports remains).
Cormac’s Chapel (Exterior) – As the wild Celtic Christian Church was reined in and reorganized by Rome 850 years ago, new architectural influences from continental Europe began to emerge on the remote Irish landscape. This small chapel – Ireland’s first and finest Romanesque church, constructed in 1134 by King Cormac MacCarthy – reflects this evolution. Imagine being here in the 12th century, when this chapel and the tall round tower were the only stone structures sprouting from the Rock (among a few long-gone, humble wooden structures).
The “new” Romanesque style reflected the ancient Roman basilica floor plan. Its columns and rounded arches created an overall effect of massiveness and strength. Romanesque churches were like dark fortresses, with thick walls, squat towers, and few windows. Irish stone churches of this period (like the one at Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains) were simple rectangular buildings emphasizing function.
The two square towers resemble those in Regensburg, Germany, further suggesting that well-traveled medieval Irish monks brough back new ideas from the continent.
Notice the weathered tympanum above the door. The carved “hippo” is actually an ox, representing Gospel author St. Luke.
Chapel Interior – Just inside the door is an empty stone sarcophagus. Nobody knows for sure whose body once lay here (possibly the brother of King Cormac MacCarthy). The damaged front relief is carved in a Viking style.
Vikings had been raiding Ireland for more than 200 years by the time this was carved; they had already intermarried with the Irish, and were seeping into Irish society. Some scholars interpret the relief design (a tangle of snakes and beasts) as a figure-eight lying on its side, looping back and forth forever, symbolizing the eternity of the afterlife.
The nave is dimly lit by three small windows. Overhead is an arched vaulted ceiling with support ribs. The strong round arches support not only the heavy stone roof but also the unseen second-story scriptorium chamber, where monks once carefully copied manuscripts by candlelight. Their work was amazingly skillful and ornate, considering the poor light.
The big main arch overhead, studded with fist-size heads, framed the altar (now gone). In the chancel one can look up and examine the faint frescoes, a labor of love from 850 years ago. Frescoes are rare in Ireland because of the perpetually moist climate. Mixing pigments into wet plaster worked better in dry climates like Italy’s. Once vividly colorful, then fading over time, these frescoes were further damaged during and after the Reformation, when Protestants piously whitewashed them. These surviving frescoes were discovered under multiple layers of whitewash during painstaking modern restoration. Imagine the majesty of this chapel before its fine ornamentation was destroyed by those Reformation iconoclasts.
The moder, dark-glass doorway leads to the Forgotten Void. This enclosed little space was created when the newer cathedral was wedged between the older chapel and the round tower.
Once the main entrance into the chapel, this forgotten doorway is crowned by a finely carved tympanum that decorates the arch above it. It’s perfectly preserved because the huge cathedral shielded it from the wind and rain. The large lion (symbol of St. Mark’s gospel) is being hunted by a centaur (half-man, half-horse) archer wearing a Norman helmet.
Graveyard and Round Tower – This graveyard is full. The 20-foot-tall stone shaft at the edge of the graveyard, marking the O’Scully family crypt, was once crowned by an elaborately carved Irish high cross – destroyed during a lightening storm in 1976. The fortified wall dates from the 15th century, when the riches of this outpost merited a little extra protection.
One looks out over the Plain of Tipperary. Its rich soil makes it Ireland’s most fertile farmland and earns it the nickname “Golden Vale”. In St. Patrick’s time, it was covered with oak forests. From the corner of the church, beyond the fortified wall on the left, you can see the ruined 13th-century Hore Abbey dominating the fields below.
The Round Tower was the first stone structure built on the Rock after the Church took over in 1101. The shape of these towers is unique to Ireland.
Though you might think towers like this were chiefly intended as a place to hide in case of invasion, they were instead used primarily as bell towers and lookout posts. The tower stands 92 feet tall, with walls more than three feet thick. The doorway, which once had a rope ladder, was built high up, not only for security, but also having it at ground level would have weakened the foundation of the top-heavy structure. The interior once contained wooden floors connected by ladders, and served as safe storage for the monks’ precious sacramental treasures. The tower’s stability is impressive when you consider its age, the winds it has endured, and the shallowness of tis foundation (only five feet below present ground level.)
Notice the square “put-log” holes in the exterior walls. During construction, wooden scaffolding was anchored into these holes. After the structure was completed, the builders simply sawed off the scaffolding, leaving small blocks of wood embedded in the walls. With time, the blocks rotted away, and the holes became favorite spots for birds to build their nests.
There is a small well on the way to the Cathedral. Its stone lip is groovy from ropes after centuries of use. Without this essential water source, the Rock could never have withstood a siege and would not have been as valuable to clans and clergy. In 1848, a chalice was dredged up from the well, likely thrown there by fleeing medieval monks intending to survive a raid. They didn’t make it (or else they would have retrieved the chalice…)
The Cathedral – Traditionally, churches face east towards Jerusalem and the rising sun. Because this cathedral was squeezed between the preexisting chapel, round tower, and drinking well, to make it face east the builders were forced to improvise by giving it s cramped nave and an extra-long choir (where the clergy gathered to celebrate mass).
Built between 1230 and 1290, the church features pointed arches and high, narrow windows that proclaim the Gothic style of the period (and let in more light than earlier Romanesque churches). The rib-vaulted ceiling has a hole in the middle – it was for a rope used to ring the church bells. The wooden roof is long gone. When the Protestant Lord Inchiquin (who became one of Oliver Cromwell’s generals) attacked the Catholic town of Cashel in 1647, hundreds of townsfolk fled to the sanctuary of this cathedral. Inchiquin packed turf around the exterior and burned the cathedral down, massacring those inside.
Looking back down the nave from the east wall, you can see the right wall of the choir is filled with graceful Gothic windows, while the solid left wall hides Cormac’s Chapel. The line of stone supports on the left wall once held the long-wooden balcony where the vicars sang. Closer to the altar, high on the same wall (directly above the pointed doorway), is a small, rectangular window called the “leper’s squint” – which allowed unsightly lepers to view the altar during Mass without offending the congregation.
The grand wall tomb on the left contains the remains of archbishop Miler Magrath, the “scoundrel of Cashel,” who lived to be 100. From 1570 to 1622, Magrath was the Protestant archbishop of Cashel who simultaneously profited from his previous position as Catholic bishop of Down. He married twice, had lots of kids, confiscated the ornate tomb lid here from another bishop’s grave, and converted back to Catholicism on this deathbed.
The modern-roofed wooden structure against the wall is protecting 15th-century frescoes of the Crucifixion of Christ that were rediscovered during renovations in 2005. They’re as patchy and hard to make out (and just as rare, for Ireland) as the century-older frescoes in the ceiling of Cormac’s Chapel.
Castle (or Tower) – Back outside, standing beside a huge chunk of wall debris, it is hard to picture what might have perched in the ragged puzzle of ruins above. This end of the cathedral was converted into an archbishop’s castle in the 1400s (shortening the nave even more). Looking high into the castle’s damaged top floors, you can see the bishop’s residence chamber and the secret passageways that were once hidden inside the thick walls. Lord Inchiquin’s cannons weakened the structure during the 1747 massacre, and in 1848, a massive storm (known as “Night of the Big Wind” in Irish Lore) flung the huge chunk we’re standing next from the ruins above.
In the mid-1700s, the Anglican Church transferred cathedral status to St. John’s in town, and the archbishop abandoned the drafty Rock for a comfortable residence, leaving the ruins that we see today.