TIPPERARY

Irish Tiobraid rann (House of the Well of Ara) town and urban district, County Tipperary, Ireland. The town grew up around a castle erected by Prince John (later King John) when he was lord of Ireland; the outline of the bailey remains. A chancel arch from a 13th-century Augustinian abbey still stands. In 1339 the town was burned by the O'Briens. New Tipperary was founded in 1890, but it was later abandoned. There is a monument to the Manchester Martyrsthree men executed in Manchester, Eng., in 1867 for killing a police sergeant during an attempted rescue of two Fenian prisoners. Pop. (1986) 5,033. Irish Tiobraid rann (House of the Well of Ara) county in Munster province, Ireland, occupying a broad strip of country between the Rivers Shannon and Suir. It is bounded by Counties Offaly and Laoighis (north), Kilkenny (east), Waterford and Cork (south), and Limerick, Clare, and Galway (west). Physically, the county may be divided into five main areas, each aligned northeast-southwest, as follows: (1) To the east of Lough (lake) Derg is a lowland, with Nenagh as its main town. An extension of the Irish central lowland, it has many medium-sized farms (50 acres [20 hectares]) that concentrate on raising stock for sale and some farm crops, mainly oats and potatoes. At the lower end of Lough Derg, the Arra Mountains rise to 1,517 feet (462 m). (2) The second area is a mass of hills extending from the Limerick border and including Keeper Hill (2,277 feet) and Silvermines Mountain (1,607 feet) and running northeastward to the Devilsbit (1,577 feet) and the Roscrea gap; the hill belt is 20 miles (32 km) wide in the south. There are some tiny villages in the farmed valleys, the agriculture of which is similar to that of the surrounding lowlands. (3) East of these uplands is a corridor 15 miles (25 km) wide through which runs the main Dublin-Cork railway. There is a covering of glacial drift, and peat bogs appear between Cashel and Thurles in the Golden Vale and in the upper Suir River valley. The farms average 60 acres (25 hectares), and cattle production for sale predominates. Dairying is prominent near Tipperary town. (4) The Slieveardagh ridge comprises a number of hills around Fethard and Cashel and extends northward to the Nore Valley. The region, which has some coal seams, is farmed extensively. (5) The extreme south of the county consists mainly of the middle Suir River lowlands and those of its tributaries, the Tar and the Anner. All this lowland is well farmed, with medium-sized and large farms averaging 90 acres (35 hectares); dairying is the main resource. Around this lowland are four ranges of mountains, the Galtees, the Knockmealdown, the Comeraghs, and Slievenaman. England's Prince John gave land in 1185 in south Tipperary to Philip de Worcester and in north Tipperary to Theobald Walter, who was created chief butler (or botiller) of Ireland; thus were founded the fortunes of the Butler family. In 1328 Edward III made Tipperary a county palatine in favour of the earls of Ormonde, the title of the Butler family, and throughout the late Middle Ages the earls of Ormonde were in the forefront of Irish politics. With the impeachment of the second duke in 1715, the palatine jurisdiction of Tipperary, the last of its kind in Ireland, was abolished. The present-day county is divided into a North and a South Riding, with county council meetings at Nenagh and Clonmel, respectively; each riding has a county manager. In the north, Nenagh, Templemore, and Thurles are urban districts; in the south, Clonmel is a municipal borough, while Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, and Tipperary are urban districts. Much of the county's industry is based on the processing of agricultural products. Area 1,643 square miles (4,254 square km). Pop. (1986) 136,619.