Say it right and the town’s name sort of rolls off the tongue like an Irish brogue. You feel a little Irish just saying Kil-KENNY–and you can get a feel for Irish history with just a daylong stay in the town.
Located 75 miles southwest of Dublin, the town of 20,000 rests on the banks of the River Nore. Although it’s a contemporary Irish town with single-family houses and apartments, its 10-block medieval city center is a tourist lure that is dominated by the tenderly restored Kilkenny Castle.
The city center is a well-preserved medieval fortress town, complete with imposing walls and gates.
The castle and just about everything else worth seeing are convenient, and the historic area is easily walked on a typically cool, damp Irish day.
During my two-week visit to Ireland, I left myself only about a day and a half for Kilkenny, but that turned out to be enough time to hit the highlights. Although I roamed around on my own, I also signed up for an hourlong walking tour with Tynan Tours, the town’s official tour company.
As far back as the 4th Century, the village that became Kilkenny was a thriving market town. In the 5th Century, St. Canice, known as “the builder of churches,” opened a monastic school here that drew students from the far-flung reaches of the known world.
The grateful townspeople named their community Kil Cainneach, Gaelic for “Church of Canice.”
Strolling through the city center, you’ll dodge cars and pass the usual gift and tourist shops and the profusion of pubs that characterizes any Irish town. But along the way, you’ll also be tempted by narrow and cobbled lanes that beckon you to explore what’s at the end of the lane.
Just wandering down some of these winding lanes with names like Pudding and Pennefeather will take you back to a time when horse-drawn carts were the main transport and knights in shining armor romped around.
Of course, the first stop for any visitor is Kilkenny Castle, the beautifully restored medieval stomping grounds of the Butler clan, a k a the Earls of Ormonde, from 1172 to 1935.
Located on a street called The Parade, the castle, with its crenulated towers, gives the town a fairy-tale feel. You expect to see Cinderella or Rapunzel high-tailing it across the 50-acre park, which sports gardens, parklands and a playground.
With its towers and battlements, Kilkenny Castle gives a stately introduction to the town, especially when the sun glints off its limestone walls. Since its founding 800 years ago, the castle has undergone numerous, meticulous renovations.
Access to the castle is by guided tour only. A highlight of these 45-minute tours is the sunlit Long Gallery, an impressive hallway reminiscent of Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors–except that the gallery is lined with Butler family portraits and tapestries instead of dazzling mirrors. The gallery’s skylight is what gives the room its airy, bright feel. Kilkenny Castle also houses a contemporary art collection.
Leave the castle, make your way to High Street, and you’ll encounter the forbidding-looking Tholsel, or City Hall. Today it serves a more mundane function, housing old books relating to Kilkenny. There’s not much else to see inside. Its black marble walls and clock tower are what give the Tholsel, built in 1761, its menacing aura and make the building good for a Kodak moment.
Even the site on which the Tholsel stands has a grisly past as the site of an execution.
In 1324, the luscious Dame Alice Kyteler was charged by the local bishop with poisoning all four of her husbands and with practicing witchcraft. Each hubby had died rather unexpectedly, but it’s also true that the Catholic Church had it in for Alice because of her money-lending business.
Unsurprisingly, she was found guilty of everything and sentenced to burn at the stake. However, the influential and wily Alice escaped, presumably to England. It was her hapless lady-in-waiting, Petronilla, who went up in flames on the site of the Tholsel.
Kyteler’s Inn on Kieran Street is located in the cellar of the 16th Century building where Alice lived but her hubbies didn’t (at least not for very long).
Mosey along Rose Inn Street and you’ll come to the Shee Alms House, which houses the Kilkenny tourist office. In addition to helpful tourism officials, you’ll find the Cityscope exhibit, a miniature display of what Kilkenny looked like in medieval times. Cost to view the exhibit is about $1.50.
Sir Richard Shee, a member of one of Kilkenny’s most influential 16th Century families, built the alms house in 1582 to accommodate “12 poor persons in the city”–six men and six women.
When residents became ill, a nurse and doctor were provided by Shee. When resident died, Shee paid for their burials. Thanks to Shee’s descendants and others who provided endowments, this sturdy Tudor building housed impoverished residents for more than 150 years.
The most striking building along Parliament Street, one of Kilkenny’s main drags, is Rothe House. This Tudor home was built by the wealthy merchant John Rothe for his wife, Rose Archer, in 1594. It’s also the starting point for Tynan Tours.
Rothe House actually is a complex of three stone houses separated by two cobbled courtyards. The Kilkenny Archaeological Society is based here, along with a genealogical research center and the city and county museums. The museums display 16th and 17th Century costumes and furniture as well as archeological and historical items dating to prehistoric times.
Of course, no Irish town is complete without a church, and Kilkenny is blessed with several worth visiting: St. Canice’s Cathedral, the Black Abbey and St. Mary’s Cathedral.
St. Canice’s, on Coach Road at the northern foot of Parliament Street, occupies the site of an earlier church founded by the patron saint of Kilkenny in about 578.
The present structure dates from 1285. For those impressed by dimensions, St. Canice’s 212 feet make it the second longest cathedral in Ireland. On its grounds are 16th and 17th Century carved tombstones and the 102-foot-high Round Tower, which was built in 847 and is open to visitors. A donation of about $1.50 is expected from each visitor.
Both St. Canice’s and the Black Abbey felt the wrath of Oliver Cromwell, the English revolutionary leader.
In 1642 an Irish Catholic Confederation Parliament had been formed in Kilkenny to devise a plan for defending the faith against England.
Rome even sent a cardinal bearing arms and money for the Catholic cause to the confederation in 1645. However, the resistance was short-lived, and by 1648 the parliament was dissolved without having formulated a plan.
Nevertheless, in 1650 Cromwell arrived in Ireland ready to punish Catholics. By the time his forces stormed into Kilkenny, the town’s population was being decimated by a plague and put up only feeble resistance.
But Cromwell’s troops were merciless. They destroyed many of Kilkenny’s buildings and used St. Canice’s to stable their horses. They smashed much of the medieval stained glass in the cathedral and defaced many of the monuments.
The troops also sacked the 13th Century Black Abbey, obliterating its stained-glass windows, defacing its sacred images, tearing off the roof and leaving the abbey in ruins.
Over time, however, clerics and townspeople rebuilt both structures.
Although St. Canice’s is more impressive from the outside, the Black Abbey–named for the black, short, sleeveless coats worn by Dominican friars–is most impressive inside.
Entering the abbey from Blackmill Street is like entering a time warp. You almost can feel yourself morphing into a medieval Kilkenny resident. The beauty of the stained glass is enhanced by the darkness.
At the entrance to the abbey, 10 stone coffins rest side by side. The coffins, which were discovered in and around the church during excavations, date to the 13th or 14th Centuries.
Looming over much of the main shopping-and-pub area of Kilkenny is the Gothic St. Mary’s Church. Situated on the highest point of the town, on Mary’s Lane off High Street, the towering church can be glimpsed from many vantage points. Built in 1202 as a Catholic chapel, it was taken over by Protestants during the Reformation. The church bounced back and forth between the two sects a few more times before ending up back in the hands of Catholics.
Today St. Mary’s is no longer a church but a parish hall used for flower shows and other recreational activities. You can’t go inside, but you can, once again, whip out the camera and snap away.
On the Tynan walking tour, you’ll shift from inspiration to intimidation with a stop at Grace’s Old Castle.
Originally built as a fortress in 1210, the building was converted to a prison in 1568. It now forms part of the basement of the 19th Century courthouse in Parliament Street.
During the 1798 Rebellion, many Irish insurgents were executed outside the prison.
A few of the cells have been restored, and spending a few minutes inside one is a vivid reminder of what “hard time” used to mean.
Several inmates would share a tiny cell, with its bed of stone and what looked like a slab of wood for a pillow. The one window offered no light, so the inmates lived in darkness.
Grace’s Old Castle continued to be used as a prison during the potato famine of the 1840s. It’s a measure of how devastating the famine was that people actually broke the law just to get into the jail–because they knew they would be fed.
Getting in wasn’t too difficult, though. People were sentenced to three years just for stealing bread.
Kilkenny’s place as a microcosm of Irish history also extends to the country’s brewing history.
In 1710 John Smithwick established a brewery in the town, and residents and visitors have quaffed an ale called Smithwicks (prounounced SMITH-ucks) for almost three centuries. The ale also is exported to some countries–the United States not among them, though Canada is–as Kilkenny Irish Beer.
In a heady pairing of the sacred and the profane, the brewery’s expanded facilities have been built around the site of St. Francis Abbey, a monastery founded in 1234 and pretty much leveled by Cromwell in 1650. All that remains of the abbey are some walls and a belfry tower.
Today Guinness brews both Smithwicks and Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser at the St. Francis Abbey Brewery.
DETAILS ON KILKENNY
Getting there: There is daily bus and train service from Dublin to Kilkenny; service is more limited on Sundays.
Staying there: Inns and bed-and-breakfasts are plentiful. Stop by the tourist information office at Rothe House for help finding a place to stay, or contact the Irish Tourist Board (see below) ahead of your trip and request a bed-and-breakfast guide.
Tours: Sign up for an hour-long Tynan Walking Tour at the visitors center; about $4.50 for adults,about $3 for students and children.
Inquire about Kilkenny Castle tours at the castle on The Parade. Cost about $4.50 for adults and about $1.90 for students and children.
Information: Contact the Irish Tourist Board at 212-418-0800.
