Tipperary : Continuing on the trail of Ireland’s Ancient East

We head from Cashel to Moyaliffe house which will be home for the next three nights. We are in the recently renovated maids quarters which is very apt for Miriam and I 🤪. The house sits on twelve acres and is quite remote (although only 20 minutes from Thurles) so we stock up in Aldi en route. Our little apartment has a kitchen, living room and bedroom and is gorgeous.

The house is owned by Lorna (Irish) and Paul (Australian) who moved back from a sheep farm in New South Wales a few years back (with their 5 dogs!) and they’ve been renovating the house and rebuilding the walled garden ever since. They’ve done a great job so far and have been keen to keep the history of the place alive. Lorna is very welcoming and as we unload the car and get settled in, she tells us that the previous visitors had a bat get into the bedroom last week. We reckon they must have had the windows wide open because of the recent heatwave. We don’t intend to be that silly…..

Once we get settled I proceed to burn a pizza in the new oven and we eat it with some salad and a bottle of red wine and plan tomorrow’s hike.

Next morning we drive about half an hour to the Glen of Aherlow and do the 9km Millenium Stone Loop walk. The trail (which is very well signposted) starts at the Christ the King statue where there are beautiful views of the Glen.

It’s a forest trail loop which goes across the Slevenamuck ridge (Slievenamuck stands for hill of the pigs!) and at a couple of points there are some beautiful views of the glen.

When we finish the hike we have a delicious picnic with our blaas from Waterford and our fancy milk jug looking out at the lovely views….

On the way home we visit Athassal priory (or abbey) which is close to the village of Golden. Siri has been brilliant with the google map directions so far but she lets us down here. We can see the ruins but can’t figure out how to get to them other than passing through someone’s land and possibly having to navigate a river! We decide to head into Golden and sure enough the priory is signposted from there.

We have to climb a turnstile and pass through a field of cows to get to it…

It’s worth it though. The abbey was founded around 1200 and sits on the banks of the river Suir. It’s Augustinian, dedicated to St. Edmund and at one point housed 2,000 people. It was one of the largest medieval priories to be found in Ireland. There are some interesting statues and I love the “windows”.

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Miriam has ensured the windows are closed and we are chilling out with some wine after our delicious dinner when the loudest smoke alarm I have ever heard goes off. We definitely haven’t done anything to set it off and although Miriam manages to stop it for a while, the lady of the house calls the electrician to check it out… wouldn’t want that happening in the middle of the night. We decide to go for an evening stroll around the grounds

There’s a carriage from 1834 and we feel very Bridgerton as we climb up and check it out

Next morning we check out the tennis courts…. Miriam may have found a new sport 🎾

The weather forecast is not so good today so we haven’t planned a big hike just some “local” exploring.

The present round towers were built in 1495 and it was owned by the Butlers before being confiscated by Henry VIII in the 16th century. We do the tour and get to meet the owner Cyril Cullen. He is quite the character and tells us lots of stories about the treasures he has accumulated throughout his very interesting life [sidebar: I think he should be on the Tommy Tiernan show!].

There are many photos with famous people and his 4 daughters The Cullen Sisters are harpists who have been on the Late Late and performed at many highbrow events. Cyril himself is a knitwear and porcelain designer and we check out his studio and buy a Christmas ornament. If you’re ever in this neck of the woods I fully recommend checking out Farney, it’s a castle tour like no other.

Next we head to Upperchurch which has a bog walk and not much else….. apparently there’s a dolmen around here somewhere but after walking around in the rain with no sign of it we give up and decide to check out Thurles. The weather has definitely turned on us although silver living it gives Miriam a chance to wear her new cape 😀

Thurles is a wash out, there’s nothing much in it other than a Tesco where we stock up for tonight’s dinner. On the way home we turn off when we see a sign for a Ballinahow castle. It doesn’t disappoint.

Back at the casa, Miriam insists I get started on the blog so after another handy dinner we relax on the sofa with yes you’ve guessed it, a glass of wine! I love traveling around the country with my favourite wines in the back of the car, it’s the way to go!

I’m a few pages in, fairly engrossed in what I’m doing when I see something out of the corner of my eye (have I mentioned my peripheral vision is excellent!!) so I jump up screaming. It’s a bat swooshing overhead and it takes a while for Miriam to see it so she has no idea what I’m screaming at. I’m jumping around like a maniac and Miriam spots it and although she doesn’t scream she does let a very cross roar at me to STOP SCREAMING! She tells me to go into the bedroom and shut the door which I’m happy to do and leave her to try entice the bat out the window…

After turning off all the lights I can hear her trying to coax the bat to fly outside. She goes between softly telling the “poor little fella, come on, out you go” to “stupid bat, there’s the window, come on, get out”. I go toward the door and open it slightly to check on her but the bat flies directly toward me.. arghhhh, I bang the door and decide I won’t be doing that again. I have my phone but there’s no cell service so I can’t ring the hosts. There’s WiFi so I message them on the Airbnb app (which seems futile but maybe they’ll see it or maybe they’ve heard some of the screaming). At least ten minutes have passed and I decide I need to go to the loo. Luckily there’s an en-suite so I use that. Just as I’m about to dry my hands there’s a swoosh and to my horror there’s another bat in the bathroom … cue the scream….arghhhhhhhh. I manage to keep him trapped and bang the bathroom door.

By now Miriam has trapped the one in the living room behind a blanket (a beautiful Avoca blanket no less) which she’s holding up, at full stretch against the wall. She tells me it’s safe to come in as I need to go through to get outside and alert out hosts so maybe they can help us. I head downstairs and out into the dark (do you know I’m afraid of the dark!) so I’m being very brave and next thing a dog barking furiously runs at me… arghhh… more screaming and door banging. Miriam is shouting from upstairs wondering what’s going on and I’m trapped yet again, this time by the dingo outside … well ok he wasn’t a dingo but he might as well have been!

Eventually after banging on their door, Lorna arrives to help. She explains she did hear noise but thought we were laughing at a movie!! Miriam is still arms stretched keeping the bat in the dark under the blanket and Lorna suggests she put on gloves so she can grab him …. seriously! I seriously hand her a pair of yellow marigolds and remove myself from the situation but luckily her husband has arrived with a net and they manage to get the bat out the window. A similar approach with the net sees the tiny bat unravel half of the toilet roll but eventually be removed from the bathroom. I’m not the better of that. Poor Miriam, so brave 😀😀

Bright eyed and ready for more adventures it’s time to bid adieu to Moyaliffe. It’s been quite an eventful stay and we would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s a fabulous place, just keep the bats out!! Lorna and Paul dig us a few spuds and give us some homegrown tomatoes and we set off as we have more ancient east treasures to uncover.. first Holy Cross abbey

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Onwards we go to find Kilcooley Abbey which is within the grounds of the Kilcooley estate where the residents live in a massive Georgian house and enjoy their garden of 1,000 acres! So this is kind of in their back garden….

That’s our Tipperary adventure done, we’ve ticked a lot of places off the list and we’re moving on to Kilkenny. Slán for now