Clonmel Institutions

The fever hospital and dispensary adjacent to it, both handsome and commodious buildings on the north side of the town, are liberally supported. The house of industry for the county of Tipperary, for the reception and support of 50 male and 50 female aged and infirm poor persons of good character, and for the restraint of male and female vagrants, is an extensive building in an airy situation at the foot of the western bridge, opened in 1811: it is supported by grand jury presentments, and is under the government of a corporation by act of parliament; it has a department for orphan children, who, when of proper age, are apprenticed to different trades; the receipts last year were £1543. 5., and the expenditure, £1335. 16. A district lunatic asylum for the county of Tipperary was opened in 1835: the building is capable of accommodating 60 patients, and was erected at an expense, including the purchase of land, furniture, &c, of £16,588.

A savings' bank has been established; and there are also a mendicity society and a clothing society, the latter established in 1833. A society has lately been formed for the maintenance and education of the orphan children of Protestant parents, and within the first year, 33 were so provided for. Several charitable bequests to a considerable amount have been left to the parish by different individuals. Of the town walls, which encompassed only what is now the central part of the town, on the northern bank of the river, there are only very imperfect remains; the entrance was by four principal gates, of which only the west gate, which has been lately very substantially repaired and forms an ornament to the town, is now standing; and of the various towers by which they were defended, there are three remaining near the churchyard. Near the western end of the town are the ruins of the church of St. Stephen, and in the southern suburb are those of the church of St. Nicholas.

Some trifling remains of the ancient castle may still be traced in what is now the office of the Tipperary Free Press. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of several castles, and traces of encampments or Danish forts; at Gurteen is a cairn or druids' altar; and near Oakland is a holy well, called St. Patrick's well; also the ruins of an ancient chapel, in which are several large stones bearing inscriptions. About half a mile to the south-east is a chalybeate spring, resorted to medicinally; and near the south suburb is another of similar kind, but not much used. The Rev. Laurence Sterne was born here in 1713; and Bonaventura Baro, or Baron, who wrote numerous works during a long residence at Rome, where he died in 1696, was also born here. Clonmel gives the titles of Earl and Viscount to the family of Scott; the father of the present Earl was the Rt. Hon. John Scott, the celebrated chief justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, who was created Baron Earlsfort in 1784, and was advanced to the Viscounty of Clonmel in 1789, and to the earldom in 1793.