The Aherlow River, flowing down from the Galtee mountains, runs by the village, to meet the Suir at Kilmoyler a short distance north of Cahir.

[4] It is cited in Irish legend as one of the places where Diarmuid and Grainne spent a night during their flight from the angry Fionn MacCumhaill.

[7] The site had a tumultuous history, matching the ebbs and flows of Irish politics and religious freedoms, and was inhabited until 1748, though with periods of desertion.

[citation needed] In the centre of Galbally's village square is a statue of a soldier, erected in memory of named local volunteers who lost their lives during the War of Independence in 1921.

The Massy's, an English family of Norman descent, received land in county Limerick in the Cromwellian plantation, and settled in Duntryleague, in the parish of Galbally.

A number of the graves are occupied by the Bennett family, who had owned nearby Gleneffy House Estate (also known as Castle Creagh)[10] from the Act of Settlement in 1662 until the 1920s.

[11] After his death, it was sold by his son George Latham Massy Bennett in an auction held in Tipperary town hall in August 1920.

[10] The current Gleneffy House was built for William's father, George Latham Bennett by the architect Charles Frederick Anderson in the 1850s, it stands on the site of the older castle, mentioned by the Rev Fitzgerald, and is located on the hillside of the Glen of Aherlow to the north of Galbally.