Rathcabbin, Ráth Cabáin, Co. Tipperary

Ráth Cabáin · Co. Tipperary

A crossroads in north Tipperary where a film crew came and stayed.

Rathcabbin is a crossroads and a post office and a church, in that order of what you notice arriving. The name means 'fort of the cabin' in Irish - Ráth Cabáin - and there is indeed a ringfort nearby, like most places in north Tipperary. The village sits off the R489, which runs between Portumna in Galway and Birr in Offaly, making Rathcabbin the kind of place you pass through rather than arrive at. Most people do.

What the village has that most do not: a Lenny Abrahamson film. Garage - the 2007 drama starring Pat Shortt as a lonely rural petrol station attendant - was shot partly on location here in the summer of 2006. The film won four Irish Film and Television Awards the following year, including Best Film. The premiere was held in Rathcabbin itself, which tells you something about how the crew felt about the place. The disused garage that anchors the film is the detail that sticks. Rural desolation photographed honestly is harder to find than it sounds.

The countryside around the village is flat, bog-edged, and close to the Shannon. Redwood Bog, 3 km northeast, is where the Little Brosna River gives itself to the Shannon - a raised bog complex of international standing for its wildfowl. The church at the crossroads was built in the early 1980s and dedicated on 17 June 1984 as the Church of Our Lady Queen of Ireland. It is a modern building in a landscape with a very old past.

Population

~150

Founded

Parish of Dorrha, barony of Lower Ormond

Coords

53.1167° N, 8.0833° W

01 / 06

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The film

Garage was shot here. The premiere was here too.

Lenny Abrahamson filmed Garage in Rathcabbin in 2006. Pat Shortt's petrol station attendant is from here, or rather the disused garage he haunts is. The village took the premiere seriously. Rathcabbin does not get many premieres.

Stories & lore → 02 The bog

Raised bog where the Brosna meets the Shannon.

Redwood Bog Nature Reserve sits 3 km northeast - a state-owned raised bog at the confluence of the Little Brosna River and the River Shannon. Internationally important wildfowl habitat. No car park, no signs, no one else there.

Walks & outings → 03 The parish

Dorrha, Lower Ormond, the far north of Tipperary.

Rathcabbin is in the civil parish of Dorrha - the same parish as Lorrha, five kilometres away, where St Ruadhán cursed Tara in the 6th century. The saints are better known than the villages. That is usually how it works up here.

Stories & lore →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A film about loneliness, set in a real village

Garage

Lenny Abrahamson came to Rathcabbin in the summer of 2006 to shoot Garage, a drama written by Mark O'Halloran. Pat Shortt played Josie - a gentle, slow, quietly lonely man who works at a rural petrol station going nowhere. The film shot over six weeks, using a disused garage in the village as its central setting. It went on to win Best Film, Best Director, Best Script, and Best Actor at the 2008 Irish Film and Television Awards. The premiere was in Rathcabbin. A small crossroads in north Tipperary hosted the launch of one of the best Irish films of the decade. It did not become famous for it. That is also very like the film.

St Ruadhan's parish, still

The Dorrha Connection

Rathcabbin lies within the civil parish of Dorrha - the ancient ecclesiastical territory whose centre is Lorrha village, 5 km to the south. Lorrha's monastery was founded around 550 AD by St Ruadhán, one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, who later became famous for leading a weeks-long cursing of the High King at Tara. The Stowe Missal - one of the oldest Irish liturgical manuscripts - came from Lorrha. The Augustinian priory there ran until Henry VIII dissolved it in 1541. Rathcabbin sits in the outer ring of that parish, which is to say it has always been in the orbit of somewhere very old.

Raised bog at the edge of everything

Redwood Bog

Redwood townland, northeast of Rathcabbin, holds the distinction of being the most northerly point of Tipperary and of Munster. The bog established here by the National Parks and Wildlife Service in 1991 sits at the confluence of the Little Brosna River and the River Shannon - a degraded raised bog that is nonetheless part of an internationally designated wildfowl habitat. The Little Brosna Callows flood seasonally, drawing wading birds and wildfowl in numbers that ornithologists come from outside Ireland to count. The bog itself is silent, flat, and without infrastructure. It requires a tolerance for both.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Redwood Bog Nature Reserve 3 km northeast of the village, off quiet back roads. No formal trail - the reserve is open wetland and bog. Best visited September to March for wildfowl. Bring boots and a map. The flat horizon goes a long way in every direction.

Short walk, open accessdistance

1-2 hourstime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

North Tipperary is good in late spring - flat light, empty roads, the bogs just waking up. No reason not to.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Lough Derg is 5 km west if you want water. Rathcabbin itself stays unchanged by the season. The bog is quieter for birds but the landscape is at its most accessible.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The best season for Redwood Bog - wildfowl beginning to arrive on the callows, long still evenings, no one else around. This is what the place is for.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The bog floods and birding is at its peak, but the roads are wet and the village offers no warmth to return to. Come prepared or pair it with Borrisokane or Terryglass for somewhere to sit down afterwards.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Looking for somewhere to eat in the village

There is no pub or restaurant in Rathcabbin as of 2026. Borrisokane is 10 km southeast and has a good pub-restaurant. Plan accordingly.

Expecting a visible garage from the film

The filming locations in Rathcabbin were real-world buildings in 2006. Twenty years on, they are not preserved or signed as film sites. The film exists; the set does not.

Getting there.

By car

Borrisokane is 10 km southeast on back roads. Portumna (Co. Galway) is about 14 km north via the R489. Birr (Co. Offaly) is roughly 18 km northeast. A car is the only realistic way in - there is no public transport to the village.

By bus

No bus service. Borrisokane is the nearest point with any public transport link. Bus Eireann serves Borrisokane on routes between Nenagh and Portumna.

Next on the tour

Co. Tipperary

Lorrha

Five kilometres south. St Ruadhan's monastery, the Stowe Missal, and Dominican friary ruins. Everything in this parish eventually comes back to Lorrha.

Co. Tipperary

Borrisokane

Ten kilometres southeast. The nearest market town - has a proper pub-restaurant and the backstory of Barry Lyndon somewhere in its DNA.

Co. Tipperary

Terryglass

West on Lough Derg. Two pubs, a Book of Leinster connection, and a quay where the Shannon cruisers tie up.

Co. Tipperary

Aglish

Eight kilometres north, a quiet junction that began its life as a place of worship.