Ardfinnan () is a small village in

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. It is situated on the

River Suir The River Suir ( ; or ''Abhainn na Siúire'' ) is a river in Ireland that flows into the Atlantic Ocean through Waterford after a distance of . The catchment area of the Suir is 3,610 km2.

and R665 regional road. The Catholic parish of Ardfinnan is made up of three areas: Ardfinnan, Ballybacon, and Grange. Ardfinnan is also a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the ancient

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

Iffa and Offa West Iffa and Offa West ( Irish: ''Uíbh Eoghain agus Uíbh Fhathaidh Thiar'') is a barony in County Tipperary, Ireland. This geographical unit of land is one of 12 baronies in County Tipperary. Its chief town is Cahir. The barony lies between Clanw ...

. The village is located from the town of

Clonmel Clonmel () is the county town and largest settlement of County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Cromwellian army which sacked the towns of Dro ...

and from

Cahir Cahir (; ) is a town in County Tipperary in Ireland. It is also a civil parish in the barony of Iffa and Offa West. Location and access For much of the twentieth century, Cahir stood at an intersection of two busy national roadways: the Dubli ...

via the

R670 road The R670 road is a Regional road (Ireland), regional road in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The route runs from its junction with the R639 road, R639 and N24 road (Ireland), N24 at Cloughabreeda 2 km north of Cahir through Cahir town and on ...

. The population of the village is approximately 900 people.

Transport

During the week it is served five times a day in each direction by

Bus Éireann Bus Éireann (; "Irish Bus") is a state-owned bus and coach operator providing services throughout Republic of Ireland, Ireland, with the exception of Dublin, where bus services are provided by sister company Dublin Bus. It is a subsidiary of C ...

route 245 linking it to

Mitchelstown Mitchelstown () is a town in the north of County Cork, Ireland with a population of over 3,740. It is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains. Mitchelstown is 13 km south-west of the Mitchelstown Cave, 53 km nor ...

Fermoy Fermoy () is a town on the Munster Blackwater, River Blackwater in east County Cork, Ireland. As of the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, the town and environs had a population of approximately 6,700 people. It is located in the barony (Ir ...

and

Cork "Cork" or "CORK" may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container *** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine Places Ireland * ...

. At the weekend there are three buses each way.

7th century abbey

Saint Fíonán Lobhar (or Finian the Leper) founded an

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

for

Canons Regular of Saint Augustine The Canons Regular of St. Augustine are Catholic priests who live in community under a rule ( and κανών, ''kanon'', in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious ...

with a

leper colony A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. '' M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East ...

here in the early 7th century, high up on the site of the now present castle, known as Fíonáin's height, where the village gets its name. In 908, King of Munster

Cormac mac Cuilennáin Cormac mac Cuilennáin (831 A.D. - 13 September 908) was an Irish bishop and the king of Munster from 902 until his death at the Battle of Bellaghmoon. He was killed in Leinster. Cormac was regarded as a saintly figure after his death, and h ...

bequeathed one ounce of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

, one ounce of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

, his

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

armour Armour (Commonwealth English) or armor (American English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, e ...

and

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

to the abbey. The abbey was plundered and burnt by

Cambro-Normans Cambro-Normans (; "Wales", ; ) were Normans who settled in southern Wales and the Welsh Marches after the Norman invasion of Wales. Cambro-Norman knights were also the leading force in the Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland, led by Richard de ...

during the

Norman Invasion of Ireland The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land in Ireland over which the monarchs of England then claimed sovereignty. The Anglo-Normans ...

in 1178. A

Carmelite The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

abbey was later built on the opposite side of the river valley, known as Lady's Abbey, of which its ruin is still extant after it was destroyed during the

English Reformation The English Reformation began in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away first from the authority of the pope and bishops Oath_of_Supremacy, over the King and then from some doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church ...

. There was also a monastery for Franciscan Friars, Third Order Regular.

Ardfinnan Castle

A prominent feature of the village is the Anglo-Norman Ardfinnan Castle, the sister castle to

Lismore Castle Lismore Castle () is a castle located in the town of Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland. It belonged to the Earls of Desmond, the Earls of Cork, and then to the Cavendish family from 1753. It is currently the Irish home of the Duke of Devonsh ...

and was built by

Maurice de Prendergast Maurice de Prendergast was a Norman knight, fl. 1169–1174. Maurice was from Prendergast, now in Haverfordwest, Wales, and was hired in 1169 by the ruler of the Irish kingdom of Osraige, Domnall Mac Gilla Pátraic, to resist the Leinster king, D ...

under order of Prince John of England in 1185 to guard the river crossing. The 13 arch bridge was started soon after the castle was completed. The castle has a long and varied history of owners, including the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, and is inhabited to the present. The castle is a private residence and is not open to the public.

Economy

Mills

Illustration of Prendergasts gristmill - Early 18th century

The former Ardfinnan Woollen Mills of Mulcahy, Redmond & Co., which produced its renowned Ardfinnan tweeds and suitings was established in the village in 1869. It was built on the site of a former

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

corn mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

which had been in operation since before the Civil Survey of 1654 up until it was sold by the Prendergasts of Ardfinnan in the mid 19th century. A historical tradition of spinning and weaving in the village suggests the Knights Templar at Ardfinnan Castle introduced a fulling mill to finish woven cloth in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. Flour milling would have sustained knights in the castle. The woollen mills became a leading firm in Irish textiles and was of great benefit to the village of Ardfinnan, providing employment to over 220 workers at its peak and electricity for streetlights and homes in the surrounding area long before the Rural Electrification Scheme was introduced. HM

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...

visited the mill in the 1900s. It closed in 1973.

Developments

Ardfinnan was a location, used by

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

, for the manufacture of wooden video game arcade cabinets from 1974 to 1984. At its height 200 workers were building 2,000 arcade cabinets a month at the location just outside the village. The plant in Ardfinnan closed in 1989. Insulation manufacturer, ''Moy Isover'' were also based in the village since 1974 before finally closing in 2008. In January 2017, €800,000 was allocated for essential remedial works on the bridge by the government. As a public safety initiative, a traffic light one way system has been in place on the bridge since the end of 2015 after significant structural damage was discovered.

Sport

Ballybacon-Grange GAA is the local

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

hurling Hurling (, ') is an outdoor Team sport, team game of ancient Gaelic culture, Gaelic Irish origin, played by men and women. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goa ...

club.

Ardfinnan GAA Ardfinnan GAA is a Tipperary GAA club which is located in Ardfinnan, County Tipperary, Ireland. The club, which competes at county level and in the "South" division of Tipperary GAA, is known by its supporters as "the village". The team's home ...

is the local

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

club. They were Tipperary county

champions in 2005. Ardfinnan Anglers have licensed fishing rights to approximately 15 km of river bank on the river

Suir The River Suir ( ; or ''Abhainn na Siúire'' ) is a river in Ireland that flows into the Atlantic Ocean through Waterford after a distance of . The catchment area of the Suir is 3,610 km2.

Brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

and

Salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

can be caught in these waters. The river banks are maintained annually by club members who perform the work voluntarily before the commencement of the annual fishing season.

References

External links

Ardfinnan.net Archived Website
{{County Tipperary Towns and villages in County Tipperary Civil parishes of Iffa and Offa West