The brand that outlived the factory
Kilmeaden Cheddar
Five Waterford co-ops merged in 1964 to form Waterford Co-operative; a year later they built a cheese plant in Kilmeaden. For four decades the orange block was a fixture of the Irish dairy aisle. Avonmore and Waterford merged in 1997, became Glanbia in 1999, and in 2006 Glanbia closed the Kilmeaden plant and shifted production to Ballyragget in Kilkenny. The factory was demolished in 2019. Glanbia Ireland rebranded as Tirlán in 2022 after the farmer co-op bought the remaining 40% from Glanbia plc. The cheese is still called Kilmeaden. The village that named it has no plant, no shop, and no signage to say so.
Volunteers, a Simplex, and a tunnel
The Waterford & Suir Valley Railway
The Waterford, Dungarvan & Lismore line closed to passengers in 1967 and to freight in 1982. In the late 1990s a group of volunteers re-laid 3-foot narrow gauge over part of the route from Kilmeaden eastward toward Bilberry. They opened to the public in 2003. The locomotive — a Simplex diesel called Enterprise 3 — had a previous life in the English peat industry and the Channel Tunnel works; the carriages were built for a South American theme park whose order fell through. The standard run is 40 minutes return to Carriganore. On Saturdays the train extends to a 14 km round-trip through the Dan Donovan tunnel out toward the Suir. It is a registered charity and most of the people in the cab are giving you their Saturday morning.
Six generations and seventy acres
Mount Congreve
Two kilometres south of the village, on a slope above the Suir, is Mount Congreve — a 1760 Georgian house built by John Roberts, the Waterford architect who later did both the city's cathedrals. Six successive Congreves lived there until Ambrose Congreve died in 2011, aged 104. He spent fifty years planting the gardens: seventy acres of woodland, three thousand species, two thousand rhododendrons, six hundred camellias, the lot. He left it to the State. The house was closed for years and reopened as a visitor attraction in 2023. The gardens are the reason to go; the walled garden is the bit people remember.