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Portroe —County North Tipperary

Portroe stands at 182 metres/605 feet above sea level. The village has a commanding view of the countryside including Lough Derg. The church in cream gritstone is attractive. A simple headstone in the churchyard commemorates a Tipperary hurler-author of the landmark 1926 U.S.A. tour, Tommy Kenny, and his son Seá(r) (1930-1973), who crossed the Atlantic with three others in an open Ketch, Ituna, studied with Frank Lloyd Wright at Arizona and became a celebrated designer for the London stage. The signpost indicates a German-owned tube factory originally built up by J.B. O' Driscoll, who in 1923 revitalised the slate quarries which were first worked in the late 1700s and once employed 400 men. The new era lasted until 1956; the now ghostly workings supplied 'Killaloe' slates to a vast number of public and private buildings in Ireland, Scotland and Holland.