"Quaker House"

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From the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, the Meeting house of the Cahir Quakers was situated at Garryroan, a townland some three miles from Cahir. This area then contained the core of the Cahir Quaker population. Joshua Fennell (Spokesman for the meeting) built Cahir Abbey House, in the late 1770s and this became increasingly their meeting place from the early nineteenth century. After the death of Fennel in 1830, the question of a future meeting place for the Society of Friends was raised as most members were by now resident in or close to Cahir Town.

The executors of the Fennel estate, led by Richard Grubb of Clogheen, selected a slice of land, with frontage on Abbey Street, and the legal documents were signed on 11th May 1832. On this site the Meeting House was built. It was completed in early 1834, at a total cost of 838 pounds and 3s which included gates walls and interior decorating. In that year, 75 Quakers lived in Cahir District, with a further 46 at or near Clogheen. Of this total of 121 persons, 80 attended Cahir Meeting House, while the remainder mostly based in Clogheen had house meetings and occasionally travelled by coach to Clonmel or Cahir, both eight miles distance.

From the mid - 1850s, due to a variety of reasons already mentioned elsewhere, the Cahir meeting went into decline. By 1861, the combined Cahir - Clogheen group numbered just 37, and this fell further to 13 by 1881. By 1891, the meeting numbered just 7 persons, leading to amalgamation with the Clonmel meeting shortly after. The building was leased to the Presbyterian Church Authorities, (then actively seeking a suitable building for their rapidly expanding congregation) and was finally sold to them by the Society of friends in 1897.