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Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
1848 saw rebellions all across Europe, and in the aftermath of the Great Famine, the Young Irelander Rebellion was staged here. A contingent of 47 police approached the flag-waving rebels, but found themselves outnumbered and bolted into this farmhouse, within which were five children. A stand-off turned into a shoot-out, "The Battle of Widow McCormack's cabbage plot". Two rebels were fatally shot but the police were sheltered, and when their reinforcements came, the rebels fled. Several were convicted and transported to Bermuda; others escaped to France or the US.
Famine Warhouse 1848, traditionally known as the Ballingarry Warhouse or The Widow McCormack's House, is an Irish farmhouse famous as the site of a skirmish in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, at which the Irish tricolour was flown for the first time.
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Blue tees 6663 yards, par 72.
St Mary's is a "First Fruits" church built in 1825 over a Norman ruin — see County Tipperary for more on this initiative to build more Protestant churches in Ireland. It remains in occasional use as a Church of Ireland church and its ground floor has a small museum about the Great Famine. A "Sheila na Gig" from elsewhere in town is also here. The church is seldom open.
The original cathedral of the diocese was on the Rock of Cashel, but that was grabbed by the Protestants at the Reformation. As elsewhere, the Catholics weren't allowed to build their own churches until the Penal Laws were relaxed. This Italianate Romanesque cathedral was built over earlier chapels and completed in 1879, with an impressive rose window and baptistry, and white marble altar. The high-domed tabernacle is by Giacomo della Porta, a pupil of Michelangelo; it came from the Gesu Church in Rome. The cathedral's eight bells can be dinged by hammer but not change-rung, for fear of bringing the campanile crashing down.
Displaying memorabilia of the GAA and Gaelic games, but it's chiefly a merchandising outlet for club colours. It also houses the Tourist Information Centre.
Racing every Saturday from 7:30PM.
This track has National Hunt (jumps) races Nov-March. It's an oval right-handed, 2 km circuit with 6 flights of hurdles and 7 steeplechase fences then a steep uphill finish; and races make two circuits. On race days there's a free minibus shuttle from the railway station.