County Dossier
Tipperary
A great inland county of pasture, mountains and royal rock.
Tipperary occupies a broad swathe of inland Munster, from the Golden Vale's rich grazing country to the rising slopes of the Galtees and other mountain blocks.
At a glance
Tipperary at a glance
A great inland county of pasture, mountains and royal rock.
- Golden Vale and old Munster lordships
- County by the medieval period
- Galtees, Suir valley and the Rock of Cashel
- Area: 1,661 sq miles / 4,302 sq km
- Population: 158,754
- County Top: Galtymore (3,015ft / 919m)
County Geography
Tipperary meets Galway and Clare across the Shannon and Lough Derg to the north and north-west, Offaly and Laois to the north and north-east, Kilkenny to the east, Waterford to the south-east, Cork to the south, and Limerick to the west and south-west. The county is shaped by the long central plain, the Suir valley, the northern lake-and-river side, and the mountain blocks of the south.
Golden Vale, Suir basin, northern lake side, and southern mountains give Tipperary a strong and readable county form.
Map Reference
View Tipperary on the map
Tipperary is the county. The map shows its boundary, places, and neighbouring counties.
The county.
The county boundary.
Nearby counties and places.
Places and routes
Tipperary, Cashel, Thurles, Clonmel, and Nenagh show the county from its central plain and ecclesiastical heart to its northern and southern sides.
Connections
The county’s routes have long crossed the central plain through Thurles and Cashel, linked Clonmel and Tipperary in the south, and run north toward Nenagh and Lough Derg. Movement follows the same plain, valley, lough, and mountain-rim pattern.
Names
- Tipperary
- County Tipperary
- County of Tipperary
Tiobraid Árann is the Irish form of Tipperary. County Tipperary is the formal historical style, the county name means the well of the Ara, and the older county background lies in the Golden Vale and the old Munster lordships gathered within one great inland county.
Tipperary was a county by the medieval period, and its combination of plain, mountain, and riverside country has kept its identity broad but coherent ever since. That inland Munster geography still gives the historic county a clear shape.