Dunmore Cave

PricingFree with English Heritage membershipEH memberFree entryNon-member€5

EH members go freeInfo

Free entry for English Heritage members

This place is cared for by the Office of Public Works, which runs Ireland's national heritage sites as Heritage Ireland. English Heritage members are entitled to free entry to all OPW sites from the first year of membership. Show your current membership card at admissions.

Bring the card itself: joint and family memberships admit the named holders only.
Guided sites may run tours at set times; unguided sites are free to everyone.
Prices here are in euro.

More information

Entry

Non-member prices

Adult: guided tour€5.00

Child or student€3.00

Senior or group€4.00

Family€13.00

Pricing details

The ticket is the guided tour with the visitor centre's exhibition and film; sold at the desk only, walk-ins first come first served, with advance planning by email recommended for groups because tours are capped at 50. OPW's general rule gives free admission to children under 12 and to visitors with disabilities and their carers. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.

OPW's Child/Student rate; no age band given on the page, and OPW says children under 12 visit free. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.

OPW's Group/Senior rate; no age given on the page. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.

OPW's family ticket; the page does not define the family. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.

ParkingParking not known

The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.

Parking details

OPW lists a car park and bicycle parking at the visitor centre but publishes no charge or location beyond the site itself; a January 2026 visitor found ample parking on a quiet winter day. The cave is 10 km from Kilkenny, 1 km off the N78 Castlecomer road and well signposted. OPW gives no bus or train directions.

Driving pin: OPW's own pin at the visitor centre, since no official source locates the car park separately.

About

Dunmore Cave, ten kilometres north of Kilkenny and a kilometre off the Castlecomer road, is a series of limestone chambers formed over millions of years and holding some of the most impressive calcite formations in any Irish cave, a place where history and geology merge. It was first mentioned in the ninth-century Triads of Ireland as one of the darkest places in Ireland, and the Annals of the Four Masters record that the Viking leader Guthfrith of Ivar massacred a thousand people here in AD 928; archaeology has not reliably confirmed a massacre, but finds including human remains show that Vikings were active in the cave. Today it is a show cave entered only on guided tours that take you deep into the earth and deeper into the past, after an introductory film in the visitor centre. A visit means about 700 steps in a cold, wet interior, so wear a warm layer and non-slip shoes; tours take about an hour and are capped at fifty people.

Check today’s timesPick a day for times and prices

Dunmore Cave open 7 days a week with the last admission to the Cave at 16:00

Today, Saturday 24 October

Dunmore Cave09:30 – 17:00last admission 16:00

Prices, non-members

Adult€5.00
Child€3.00
Family€13.00

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open all year, daily 9.30am to 5pm with last admission to the cave at 4pm; no Christmas closure is printed, and all visitors must leave the cave before darkness falls. Access is by guided tour only, with tours limited in number and capped at 50 people; OPW asks visitors to plan ahead by emailing dunmorecaves@opw.ie, but walk-ins are welcome and places go first come first served, so expect a wait of twenty minutes or so at busy times. Not on OPW's Free Wednesday list.

The caves are not accessible to wheelchair users: a visit entails about 700 steps with a handrail to hold, on uneven, wet ground at a constant chill, so suitable footwear and warm clothing are needed and anyone with health issues should consider their limits. The site may not suit very young children, who must be strictly supervised, at most three children to each adult. Toilets at the centre; card payments accepted; no cafe or shop.

Photo: Looking out from the mouth of Dunmore Cave towards daylight, with mossy rocks, the railed visitor stairway and the roofed entrance canopy. Jan-Philipp Litza, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_to_Dunmore_Cave.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.