The county returns four members to tho Imperial Parliament : two for the county at large, and one for each of the boroughs of Cashel and Clonmel. It is in the Leinster circuit. The assizes for the North Riding are held in Neuagh, for the South Riding in Clonmel, each of these towns having a county jail. Quarter sessions for the North Riding are held at Nenagh, Roserea, and Thurles ; for the South Riding at Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Clogheen, New Birming ham, Newport, Itoserea, Templemore, Thurlcs, and Tipperary. Petty sessions are held in 22 places. There are three stipendiary magistrates in the North Riding, two at Nenagh and one at Borris-o-Kane ; and four in the South Riding, one each at Cahir, Carriek-on-Suir, Thurles, and Tipperary. The Lunatic Asylum is at Clonmel, the county Infirmary at Cashel, and Fever hospitals are at Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Clogheen, Clonmel, Roscrea, Templemore, Thurles, and Tip perary. There are 46 dispensaries in the county. Savings banks are at Cashel, Clonmel, Roserea, and Thurlee ; and loan-funds at Cahir, Cashel, Fethard, Nenagh, Roserea, and Tipperary. The Union work houses are at Clonmel, Lorrie-o-Kane, Nenagh, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Clogheen, Roserea, Thurles, and Tipperary. The northern part of the county is in the military district of Limerick ; the eastern part, in cluding Clonmel and Carriek-on-Snir, is in the Kilkenny district In September 1852 them were 199 National schools, attended by 14,S89 male and 14,054 female children.
History and Antiquities.—Sir James Ware supposes that the Coriondi and the Udine, or rather Uodin, of Ptolemaaus, occupied thin county and the adjacent once to the west and south-west. Wo think it not improbable that the Brigantea may have occupied the south-eastern parts, while the Uodias occupied the south-western. In the division which prevailed before the English conquest, Tipperary appears to have been divided between the kingdom of Thomond, or North Munster, governed by princes of the Dalcassian race; and Deemond, or South Munster, held by princes of the Eoganacht, or Eugenian, family ; the princes of which two kingdoms appear to have possessed in alternate succession the paramount dominion of Munster. Ono of these sovereigns, Mukertaeh, in 1101, gave the city of Cashel to the chinvh, dedicating it to God and St. Patrick.
In the English invasion, Henry IL (1172) summoned an assembly of the Irish prelates and princes at Cashel, where the sovereignty of the English king was recognised, and various regulations were made, increasing the power of the clergy, and more completely assimilating the practices of the Irish Church to those of the Church of Rome. Tipperary was one of the districts erected into counties by King John (1210), during his expedition to Ireland, at the head of a considerable nrmy. It is probable that the northern part at least of the county was part of the seat of war (1274-1277) between the O'Briens, who retained a portion of Thomond, and the Anglo-Norman, or as we may now term them, Anglo-Irish family of the De Clares. In 1823 the royal privileges in the county were granted to James Butler, earl of Carrick, now created also Earl of Ormond; these royalties were long retained by the earls of Ormond. The county was the scene of fre quent contests between the Geraldines and the Butlers. The burning of the cathedral of Cashel was one of the charges brought against the Earl of Kildare in his examination before the privy council (1496). His reply to the charge was characteristic: " Spare your evidence," said he ; "I did burn the church ; for I thought the bishop bad been in it." In the great civil war in 1642, Cahir, Cashel, Fethard, Clog heen, and Clonmel were all taken by Cromwell, and suffered severely. In the war of the Revolution, Clonmel was abandoned by the Jaco bites on William'e advance towards the south after the battle of the Boyne (1690).
The antiquities of the county consist chiefly of the mills, more or lees dilapidated, of castles and mouastic buildings. The Mitehelstown atalactitic caverns, situated within two small hills, about 100 feet high, of gray-limestone, are remarkable and beautiful natural curiosities. They lie on the northern side of the Galtees Mountains, about 12 miles from Cahir, on the road from that town to Mitehelatown, in the county of Cork. They both contain many chambers and galleries, with singular stalactitio deposits, and the series called the New Caves, which are connected with each other, has a length from north to south of 870 feet, while the breadth in an east and west direction is 570 feet.