The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 03, July 18, 1840

TRANSCRIBERS’ NOTE
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To such of our readers as have not had the good fortune to see the ancient metropolis of Munster, our prefixed illustration will, it is hoped, give some general idea of the situation and grandeur of a group of ruins, which on various accounts claim to rank as the most interesting in the British islands. Ancient buildings of greater extent and higher architectural splendour may indeed be found elsewhere; but in no other spot in the empire can there be seen congregated together so many structures of such different characters and uses, and of such separate and remote ages; their imposing effect being strikingly heightened by the singularity and grandeur of their situation, and the absence from about them of any objects that might destroy the associations they are so well calculated to excite. To give an adequate idea, however, of this magnificent architectural assemblage, would require not one, but a series of views, from its various surrounding sides. These we shall probably furnish in the course of our future numbers; and in the mean time we may state, that the buildings of which it is composed are the following:—
1st, An Ecclesiastical Round Tower, in perfect preservation.
2d, Cormac’s Chapel, a small stone-roofed church, with two side-towers, in the Norman style of the eleventh and twelfth centuries—also in good preservation.
3d, A Cathedral, with nave, choir, and transepts, in the pointed style of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, now in ruins, but which was originally only second in extent and the magnificence of its architecture to the cathedrals in our own metropolis.
4th, A strong Castle, which served as the palace of the Archbishops of Cashel.
5th, The Vicar’s Hall, and the mansions of the inferior ecclesiastical officers of the Cathedral, which are also in ruins.
If, then, the reader will picture to himself such a group of buildings, standing in solitary grandeur on a lofty, isolated, and on some sides precipitous rock, in the midst of the green luxuriant plains of “the Golden Vale,” he may be able to form some idea of the various aspects of sublimity and picturesqueness which it is so well calculated to assume, and of the exciting interest it must necessarily create even in minds of the lowest degree of intellectuality. Viewed from any point, it is, indeed, such a scene as, once beheld, would impress itself on the memory for ever.