AD│One of Ireland’s most breathtaking landmarks is also the site of one of the bloodiest massacres in the island’s history. Sitting high above the town of Cashel in County Tipperary, the Rock of Cashel might look like a serene medieval postcard, but in 1647, it became the stage for an atrocity so horrific it still echoes through Irish memory. When English Parliamentarian forces led by Murrough O’Brien stormed the Rock during the Confederate Wars, hundreds of civilians, families, clergy, and townspeople fled into the cathedral, believing its sacred walls would protect them. They were wrong. The troops breached the doors, slaughtered the priests at the altar, and set the cathedral ablaze. Panicked civilians were trapped inside. According to accounts, bodies were stacked in heaps, some burned beyond recognition, others piled where they fell while trying to escape the flames. The smoke from the Rock drifted across Tipperary for days. It remains one of the largest single massacres in I...