Two camping and caravan parks within half an hour of Cahir, and they are not alternatives to each other. One is a small farm site near the town. The other is a bigger park under the Galtees. Pick according to whether the town or the mountains are the point of the trip.
The Apple Camping and Caravan Park
The Apple is on a working fruit farm outside Cahir and is the closest site to the town. It is family run and deliberately small, taking around sixty people across a large, quiet site, which is the whole appeal: it does not feel like a holiday park.
Facilities are proper rather than lavish. There is a campers' kitchen, hot showers, hardstands, water and electrical hookups, a shop and a tennis court. Everyone who arrives gets a bottle of the farm's own apple juice, which has won awards and is a better welcome than most sites manage.
The important thing to plan around is the season. It opens in May and closes in September, so it is no use to you outside those months.
Ballinacourty House, Glen of Aherlow
Ballinacourty House Caravan and Camping Park sits in the Glen of Aherlow, on the far side of the Galtees from Cahir and roughly half an hour away by road. It is a bigger, more equipped site than The Apple, with a shop, a playground, tennis and mini golf, and it has the views: the Galtee Mountains rise directly out of the glen behind it.
Go there if the hills are the point of the trip. The walking from the glen is better than anything starting in Cahir itself, and the drive over is one of the good ones in Tipperary.
Choosing between them
The Apple is closer to Cahir, smaller, quieter and seasonal. Ballinacourty is further out, better equipped, better for children and better placed for the Galtees. If you want to see Cahir Castle and the Swiss Cottage and use the town in the evenings, take The Apple. If you want to walk, take Ballinacourty.
Practical
Both sites are a drive from the town, so plan on having the car. Cahir itself has everything you need to restock, and takeaway food in Cahir and the pubs cover the evenings when you would rather not cook.
Book ahead in July and August. These are small sites, and Irish camping weather is unpredictable enough that a good forecast fills them in a day.
Ring the site directly if you are travelling at either end of the season. Opening dates move, and The Apple in particular is shut for more than half the year.
If camping is not the plan after all, self catering in Cahir, bed and breakfast in Cahir and hotels in Cahir cover the alternatives.