THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL. NUMBER 33. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1841. VOLUME I. [Illustration: CAHIR CASTLE, COUNTY OF TIPPERARY] To a large portion of our readers it will be scarcely necessary to state, that the little town of Cahir is in many respects the most interesting of its size to be found in the province of Munster, we had almost said in all Ireland; and that, though this interest is to a considerable extent derived from the extreme beauty of its situation and surrounding scenery, it is in an equal degree attributable to a rarer quality in our small towns--the beauty of its public edifices, and the appearance of neatness, cleanliness, and comfort, which pervades it generally, and indicates the fostering protection of the noble family to whom it belongs, and to whom it anciently gave title. Most of our small towns require brilliant sunshine to give them even a semi-cheerful aspect: Cahir looks pleasant even on one of our characteristic gloomy days. As it is not, however, our present purpose to enter on any detailed account of the town itself, but to confine our notice to one of its most attractive features--its ancient castle--we shall only state that Cahir is a market and post town, in the barony of Iffa and Offa West, county of Tipperary, and is situated on the river Suir, at the junction of the mail-coach roads leading respectively from Waterford to Limerick, and from Cork by way of Cashel to Dublin. It is about eight miles W.N.W. from Clonmel, and the same distance S.W. from Cashel, and contains about 3500 inhabitants. The ancient and proper name of this town is _Cahir-duna-iascaigh_, or, the circular stone fortress of the fish-abounding Dun, or fort; a name which appears to be tautological, and which can only be accounted for by the supposition that an earthen _Dun_, or fort, had originally occupied the site on which a _Cahir_, or stone fort, was erected subsequently. Examples of names formed in this way, of words having nearly synonymous meanings, are very numerous in Ireland, as _Caislean-dun-more_, the castle of the great fort, and as the Irish name of Cahir Castle itself, which, after the erection of the present building, was called _Caislean-na-caherach-duna-iascaigh_, an appellation in which three distinct Irish names for military works of different classes and ages are combined.