On our doorstep
Following Shane MacGowan through Tipperary
The trail runs along our stretch of Lough Derg and through the town up the road. Here is what is at each stop, how long the driving actually takes, and where to park when you get there.
Shane MacGowan was born in England and made his name in London, but the places that formed him are here in north Tipperary. His mother came from Carney. He spent childhood summers on these boreens, went to Mass in Kilbarron, drank in Nenagh and Puckane, and kept coming back all his life. Discover Lough Derg has mapped eleven of those places into a trail, and his funeral in Nenagh in December 2023 turned it into something people travel a long way to walk.
Most of what is written about the trail tells you what happened at each stop. This page is the other half: the order to drive it in, what is open, and where to leave the car. The Stables is at Garrykennedy on the lake, about fifteen minutes from Nenagh and the same from Dromineer. Every stop on the trail is inside half an hour of our gate.
The trail in half a day
Start in Nenagh and work back out towards the lake. That way you hit the town while the shops and the tourist office are open, and you finish by the water with a pub within reach. Nothing on the trail is more than half an hour from our door, and three of the stops are inside twenty minutes.
1. Nenagh
Four stops sit within a few minutes' walk of each other. The mural at Emmet Place, by Tipperary artist Neil O'Dwyer, went up in October 2024 and has become the place people come to photograph, sit and occasionally play. A few steps away O'Dwyer has painted a second mural, a rowing boat moored on still water, carrying lines from The Broad Majestic Shannon. The tourist office on Banba Square keeps a permanent display of photographs and memorabilia. St Mary of the Rosary Church held his funeral, and his mother went to Mass there every Sunday. Philly Ryan's bar was his favourite, and holds the biggest collection of Shane material anywhere on the trail, plus a mural of its own. The Abbey Court Hotel is the one the family calls their own, and he stayed there often.
2. Puckane
Kennedy's bar, where the Pogues played a Twelfth Night gig in 1986 that people in the village still talk about, with Shane's family getting up on stage. Christy Moore tells the story of meeting Shane in the snug here when he introduces his own version of Fairytale of New York live.
3. Cloughprior
The cemetery holds the Lynch family, Shane's mother's people, with a memorial stone carrying all their names. He wrote the place into The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn. Quiet, exposed and worth the stop.
4. Carney
This is the heart of it. The family home, the boreens he walked as a child, and the house where the photographs from Christmas Day 1987 were taken, with Fairytale of New York sitting at number one in Ireland. Carney is a scatter of houses and fields rather than a visitor attraction, and that is the point. The one marker is at the signpost, and it is worth knowing what you are looking at: Neil O'Dwyer's mural is a colour rendition of an old black-and-white photograph taken here when the children were small. Shane is the boy in the cap, holding the reins. His sister Siobhán is the little girl in their uncle's arms. The others are neighbours. Stand in front of it and you are looking at the summers that turned up later in the songs.
5. Cross of Finnoe
A crossroads where people once gathered to dance and play pitch and toss, and where the Lynches danced. It appears by name in The Broad Majestic Shannon.
6. Borrisokane
Hannigan's pub, with a long display of photographs and memorabilia. The front of the building appears in Julien Temple's documentary Crock of Gold.
7. Kilbarron
His mother went to school here and married his father in the church in August 1956. Shane came to Mass here through his childhood summers. The Broad Majestic Shannon monument, finished in September 2025, stands near the church.
8. Ballinderry
The sports field is home to Shannon Rovers GAA, founded by his great-grandfather John Lynch, who was its first president. Johnny Ryan's pub nearby was drunk in by his grand-uncles. He spent his 60th birthday near here in 2017.
9. Skehanagh
A seat on the shore of Lough Derg, inscribed and put there by the local community. One of the better places on the whole trail to stop and do nothing for twenty minutes.
10. Luska
A stretch of shoreline he came to as a child, and one of the quiet ones on the trail.
11. Dromineer
The harbour where his mother danced at regattas as a young woman, and one of the Shannon places behind the closing lines of The Broad Majestic Shannon. The Yanks, later McKenna's, is where he sang with local musicians in the late seventies and early eighties. He wrote afterwards that it was here he first understood that traditional and contemporary music could be fused, and called those sessions the original Pogues.
Before you set off
- You need a car. There is no bus between the stops and the distances are real.
- Rural pubs keep rural hours. Ring ahead if a particular pub is the reason you are going.
- Cloughprior is a working cemetery and Carney is people's homes. Visitors are welcome; drones and long lenses over garden walls are not.
- Nenagh is the only stop with a full choice of food. Eat there.
- Download the official leaflet: the Shane MacGowan Trail map and guide (PDF) from Discover Lough Derg, with photographs from the family archive.
Why so many Spanish visitors?
People who live here notice it: a lot of the cars on the trail have Spanish voices in them. There is a reason, and it runs back to the summer of 1986.
The Pogues went to Almería to film Alex Cox's spaghetti-western spoof Straight to Hell, alongside Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello and Dennis Hopper. The film was a flop and became a cult object. Out of that trip came Fiesta, built on a Spanish fairground tune Jem Finer picked up while they were there, with Almería itself named in the lyric. Shane's feeling for Spain stayed with him: Lorca's Novena, on Hell's Ditch, came out of the same connection.
So Spanish fans already have a Pogues place of their own. Coming to Tipperary closes the circle.
Para los visitantes españoles
La ruta de Shane MacGowan empieza en Nenagh y sigue hasta la orilla del Lough Derg. Se puede hacer en media jornada en coche, y hace falta coche: no hay transporte público entre las paradas.
Estamos en Garrykennedy, a quince minutos de Nenagh y de Dromineer. Todas las paradas de la ruta están a menos de media hora de la casa. Podéis ver la casa aquí y escribirnos si necesitáis ayuda para organizar la visita.
Questions we get asked
- How long does the trail take?
- Half a day covers the main stops at an easy pace. A full day lets you eat in Nenagh, sit a while at Skehanagh and Kilbarron, and finish with a session.
- Where is the Shane MacGowan mural in Nenagh?
- At Emmet Place in the town centre, by Neil O'Dwyer, unveiled in October 2024. There is a second Shane mural at Philly Ryan's bar, and a second O'Dwyer mural at Emmet Place of a rowing boat on the Shannon.
- Where is Shane MacGowan buried?
- His funeral was held at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh in December 2023. Cloughprior Cemetery, on the trail, holds the Lynch family graves and appears in his writing.
- Do I need a car?
- Yes. There is no public transport between the stops, though the roads are quiet and every stop is within half an hour of Garrykennedy.
- When is the best time to go?
- It runs all year. Late November and December are busiest, around the anniversary and the season that belongs to Fairytale of New York. Spring and autumn are quieter and the lake is at its best.
Staying on the trail
The Stables at Garrykennedy is a newly renovated self-catering house on the shore of Lough Derg, a quarter of an hour from Nenagh and the same from Dromineer. Three of the trail stops are inside twenty minutes of the door and the furthest is under half an hour, so you can do the whole thing and be back for dinner. It sleeps five, and Larkins — Ireland's pub of the year 2026 — is at the harbour below us.
See the house, the lake and what else is nearby
Check availabilityTrail information from Discover Lough Derg. Murals at Emmet Place and Carney by Neil O'Dwyer, commissioned by Tipperary County Council (Nenagh Municipal District). Photographs by the artist and used with his permission — more of his work at murals.ie on Facebook.