County Tipperary (Irish: Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after the Norman invasion of Ireland. It is Ireland's largest inland county and shares a border with eight counties, more than any other. The population of the county was 167,895 at the 2022 census.[3] The largest towns are Clonmel, Nenagh and Thurles.
Tipperary is the sixth-largest of the 32 counties by area and the 12th largest by population.[5] It is the third-largest of Munster's six counties by both size and population. It is also the largest landlocked county in Ireland.
Tipperary is bounded (clockwise) by counties Offaly, Laois, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Clare and Galway. Its eight neighbours are the most of any county on the island.
The region is part of the central plain of Ireland, but the diverse terrain contains several mountain ranges: the Knockmealdown, the Galtee, the Arra Hills and the Silvermine Mountains. Most of the county is drained by the River Suir; the north-western part by tributaries of the River Shannon; the eastern part by the River Nore; the south-western corner by the Munster Blackwater. No part of the county touches the coast. The centre is known as 'the Golden Vale', a rich pastoral stretch of land in the Suir basin which extends into counties Limerick and Cork. At 917 m, Galtymore is the highest point.
Parishes were delineated after the Down Survey as an intermediate subdivision, with multiple townlands per parish and multiple parishes per barony. The civil parishes had some use in local taxation and were included on the nineteenth century maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland.[6] For poor law purposes, district electoral divisions replaced the civil parishes in the mid-nineteenth century. There are 199 civil parishes in the county.[7] Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland; there are 3,159 townlands in the county.[8]
The county was divided once again in 1838.[18] The county town of Clonmel, where the grand jury held its twice-yearly assizes, is at the southern limit of the county, and roads leading north were poor, making the journey inconvenient for jurors resident there.[18] A petition to move the county town to a more central location was opposed by the MP for Clonmel, so instead the county was split into two "ridings"; the grand jury of the South Riding continued to meet in Clonmel, while that of the North Riding met in Nenagh.[18] When the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 established county councils to replace the grand jury for civil functions, the ridings became separate "administrative counties" with separate county councils.[18] Their names were changed from "Tipperary North/South Riding" to "North/South Tipperary" by the Local Government Act 2001, which redesignated all "administrative counties" as simply "counties".[19] The Local Government Reform Act 2014 has amalgamated the two counties and restored a single county of Tipperary.[20]
Most of the county is in the Dáil constituency of Tipperary, which returns five deputies (TDs) to the Dáil. A small part of the county in the former rural district of Nenagh is in the constituency of Limerick City.[21] The county is part of the South constituency for European elections.
Tipperary is referred to as the "Premier County", a description attributed to Thomas Davis, Editor of The Nationnewspaper in the 1840s as a tribute to the nationalistic feeling in Tipperary and said that "where Tipperary leads, Ireland follows".[22]
Tipperary was the subject of the famous song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" written by Jack Judge, whose grandparents came from the county. It was popular with regiments of the British Army during World War I.
The song "Slievenamon", which is traditionally associated with the county, was written by Charles Kickham from Mullinahone, and is commonly sung at sporting fixtures involving the county.[23]
Irish language
There is no Gaeltacht in County Tipperary and consequently few Irish speakers. Nevertheless, there are five Gaelscoileanna (Irish language primary schools) and two Gaelcholáistí (Irish language secondary schools).[24]
Economy
The area around Clonmel is the economic hub of the county, due to manufacturing facilities owned by Bulmers (brewers) and Merck & Co. (pharmaceuticals) east of the town. There is much fertile land, especially in the region known as the Golden Vale, one of the richest agricultural areas in Ireland.
Tipperary is the only county across any Gaelic game to have won an all-Ireland title in every decade since the 1880s. Hurling has traditionally been the county's dominant sport, however, with its hurling team having won 28 All-Ireland titles in comparison to the football team's four. Tipperary has the third-highest All-Ireland tally of any county hurling team, behind only Kilkenny and Cork.
^"Tipperary County Council". 29 May 2014. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2014. Tipperary County Council will become an official unified authority on Tuesday, 3rd June 2014. The new authority combines the existing administration of North Tipperary County Council and South Tipperary County Council.
^Corry, Eoghan (2005). The GAA Book of Lists. Hodder Headline Ireland. pp. 186–91.
^Lee, J. J. (1981). "On the accuracy of the Pre-famine Irish censuses". In Goldstrom, J. M.; Clarkson, L. A. (eds.). Irish Population, Economy, and Society: Essays in Honour of the Late K. H. Connell. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
^Ireland (1794). "2 George I c.8". Statutes Passed in the Parliaments Held in Ireland. Vol. III: 1715–1733. Printed by George Grierson, printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. pp. 5–11. Archived from the original on 1 January 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
^Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government (15 October 2013). "sec.10(2) Boundaries of amalgamated local government areas". Local Government Bill 2013 (As initiated)(PDF). Dublin: Stationery Office. ISBN978-1-4468-0502-2. Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
