It lies between the Pacific Ocean and a section of the Illawarra escarpment known as Lady Fuller Park, adjacent to Bulli Pass Scenic Reserve.

After European settlement had grown in the 1860s, the town was first called North Bulli, until it was renamed Robbinsville in 1880[2] after a local landowner, Frederick Robbins.

His original manuscript transcription of the Aboriginal word for the cabbage tree palm which flourished in the area was Dthirrawell.

A local historian, Joseph Davis, cleared up the confusion in 1994, revealing that Campbell's original manuscript transliteration of the term, Dthirrawell was almost illegible, and a clerk had misread and mistranscribed it as Thirroul.

[3] Before European settlement, the land on which Thirroul is located had been occupied for at least 20,000 years by a subgroup of the Dharawal (or Tharawal) people.

[5] Cabbage-tree palms were once plentiful in the area and early white settlers harvested them to make strong fence posts.

The new name was decided upon at a meeting of ten men (including Frederick Robbins) in George's Whitford's "big new House" (located on the site of today's Ryans Hotel) in 1880.

Early construction workers on the railway caused a population increase, and the eastern side of the town progressed rapidly.

[7] Coal mining operations began at the start of the 20th century and miners needed residences, though logging had been occurring before for some time.

[citation needed] The world-famous English author, D. H. Lawrence visited Thirroul in 1922 and wrote the novel Kangaroo about Australian fringe politics after the First World War whilst there.

The town trailed down from the foot of the mountain towards the railway, a huddle of grey and red painted iron roofs.

There were wide unmade roads running straight as to go nowhere, with little bungalow homes ... Then quite near the inland, rose a great black wall of mountain or cliff ...".

A park and a monument (dedicated 21 November 1998) commemorate D H Lawrence's time at Thirroul, located on the same street as the house he stayed in.

[citation needed] Michael Bialoguski, later to become a prominent player in the Petrov Affair (1954) and later still an orchestral conductor in the UK and Europe, had a medical practice in Thirroul in the late 1940s.

In August 2007, Thirroul's CBD and beach was declared an alcohol-free zone as a council initiative to prevent public drinking on streets and footpaths within the designated area.

Some of the artwork evokes Gray's memories of an elephant stuck in the former Thirroul Beach lagoon on the current site of the playground – a story he recalled (and which Christine Hill illustrated) in his book.

[a] In April 1968, after all seating had been removed and a flat concrete floor laid, the building was converted into a roller-skating rink and opened as Skateland.

[12][15] In 2003, businessman John Comelli purchased the derelict building, and undertook extensive refurbishment to convert it back into a theatre.

[16][15] Thirroul has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: The town's major commercial area lies between an area just north of Bulli Pass, where the Princes Highway splits to form the Lawrence Hargrave Drive, to Thirroul Station, over the bridge and past the main centre and the Anita's Theatre building.

Thirroul is part of the Northern Illawarra Chamber of Commerce,[18] which was established in 1996 and is recognised as an official body by the Wollongong City Council.

This library offers email and word processing, inter-library loans, photocopying and printing, free Internet access and children's programs.

The festival actively involves community organisations, educational institutions, sporting groups, performing and visual art studios, scouts, surf lifesavers and the general public.

The SLSC is the home of the Thirroul Seagulls IRB (Inflatable rescue boat) Racing Team, who have competed strongly for the last 15 years.

Dootch Kennedy, Al Oshlack and Karen Gough have co-ordinated a series of legal actions against the development's impact on Aboriginal heritage.

Resident Jill Walker has been heroic in taking Stockland and the Minister for Planning to both the Land and Environment and Supreme Courts over a number of outstanding non-Aboriginal environmental issues relating to the development.

Recorded birds in the northern suburbs of Wollongong include the Australian King Parrot, Crimson Rosella, Eastern Sea Eagle and the Brown Gerygone.

In 2002 the first senior women's football side was entered into the local IWSA competition, that team went on to finish third in their inaugural season.

As of 2025 Thirroul is the only club in the Illawarra to enter a women's team into each of the IWFA's 4 competitions: Premier / Reserve Grade, Division 1 and Over 30s.

It is believed the original home ground was the current site of Slacky Flat, before games moved to Gibson Park in the early 1900s.

A note published by Faber Music states that forty years after the visit of D.H. Lawrence and his novel Kangaroo, "Peter Sculthorpe envisaged Thirroul as the quintessential Australian town, frozen in a more innocent time".