The Rock of Cashel, Tipperary

You can see the Rock of Cashel from the M8 long before you reach it. A cluster of medieval ruins on a limestone outcrop, sitting above the flattest, richest farmland in the country. I must have driven past it dozens of times over the years, always glancing up, always meaning to come back properly. This was the evening I finally did.

The sun was low in the west, throwing warm light onto the stone walls and the round tower. Partly cloudy, which is what you want. Enough cloud to catch colour, enough gaps to let the light through. The sky was turning pink over the Galtee Mountains, with a band of haze along the ridge giving the background a real sense of depth.

What kept drawing me back was the boundary wall. From ground level you barely notice it, but from this angle it becomes the whole composition. It traces the contours of the hill in a long, unbroken curve, holding the cathedral, the round tower, and Cormac's Chapel within its sweep. The graveyard sits inside it, the Celtic crosses catching the same warm light as the ruins.

The Rock was the seat of the high kings of Munster before it was handed to the Church in the 12th century. The scaffolding you can see on the round tower in this image was part of a long-running conservation project for the wall paintings inside Cormac's Chapel. It had been up since 2009 when I made the photograph, so by then it was practically medieval itself! It has since been taken down.

Have you been up to the Rock yourself, or is it one of those places you keep driving past?

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