Jerpoint Abbey

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€5.00

Child or student€3.00

Senior or group€4.00

Family€13.00

Pricing details

Standard price, sold at the desk only; no online booking. 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 abbey but publishes no charge; the car park lies beside the R448 about 70 m from the abbey, with public toilets next to it. The abbey is 2.5 km south-west of Thomastown on the R448: leave the M9 at exit 10 and follow the signs for Thomastown. OPW gives no bus or train directions.

Driving pin: the abbey car park by the R448, which OpenStreetMap maps with OPW as operator and Google lists as Jerpoint Abbey Parking.

About

Jerpoint Abbey, two and a half kilometres south-west of Thomastown, is one of the best examples of a medieval Cistercian abbey in Ireland and the place where Irish medieval sculpture reached new heights. Founded in the twelfth century, its church of the late 1100s shows the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, while the battlemented tower and the cloister were added in the fifteenth century. The abbey is renowned for stone carving from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries: mensa tombs from the O'Tunney school of sculptors, an incised slab of two thirteenth-century knights, effigies and memorials, and above all the decorated cloister arcades, whose columns carry saints, patrons, knights, exotic animals and mythological creatures that children can hunt down with a treasure trail from the visitor centre. Reviewers single out the carved columns, the stair to an upper floor with a view over the grassed cloister and the guides who bring the ruins to life. A small visitor centre holds an excellent exhibition.

Check today’s timesSee all times

Jerpoint Abbey10:00 – 17:00last admission 16:15

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open 5 March to 2 December 2026: 9.30am to 5pm in March, 9.30am to 5.30pm from April to September, 10am to 5pm in October and 10am to 4.30pm in November and December, with last admission 45 minutes before closing; closed for the winter after 2 December, with the 2027 season unpublished. Guided tours are offered when guides are available, otherwise an information sheet; tickets at the desk, no online booking. Free admission for everyone on the first Wednesday of each month in season. Barbecues are strictly forbidden.

The abbey is listed as wheelchair accessible with a wheelchair-accessible toilet, and the walk through the ruins and round the cloister is easy, though a staircase leads to the upper floor; no climbing on the walls. Picnic area; card payments accepted; no cafe or shop.

Photo: Jerpoint Abbey from the east: the battlemented fifteenth-century tower above the gabled church and chapels, behind a low stone wall and grass under a stormy sky. Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerpoint_Abbey_E_1997_08_28.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.