Three days in Kilkenny: the capital of Ireland in the 1640s, and it has not forgotten

Two nights in the best preserved medieval city in Ireland. A Norman castle at one end of the old street, a round tower at the other, and everything between them on foot.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Kilkenny
Places
7 across 3 days
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Kilkenny is built out of the ground it stands on: a hard blue-black limestone that polishes up like marble, which is why the city is grey in the rain and shines after it. Almost every old wall here is the same stone, and the effect is a town that looks like one thing rather than fifty.

For most of the 1640s this was the seat of Confederate Ireland, the Catholic assembly that governed two thirds of the country, minted its own coins and levied its own taxes while England was busy with a civil war of its own. Cromwell arrived in 1650 and that was the end of it, but the town has been comfortable with its own importance ever since.

It is small. Twenty seven thousand people, a medieval core you can cross in fifteen minutes, and a single spine of a street running from the castle to the cathedral. Two nights is right: a day and a half of walking, two long dinners, and no need to look at a timetable.

Highlights

  • A ninth century round tower you can climb, up ladders, for the whole county
  • A Norman castle the same family held for nearly six hundred years
  • A Tudor merchant's house with three courtyards and a walled garden behind it
  • Black limestone streets, and more pubs per head than anywhere has a right to

Where to stay

Kilkenny, two nights

Two settlements grew into one: an Irish church town around the cathedral in the north, founded in the sixth century, and a Norman merchant town around the castle in the south after 1170. They had separate walls, separate laws and a long history of not getting on, and the street between them is what visitors now call the Medieval Mile.

The Butler family held the castle from the fourteenth century until 1967, when they sold it to the town for fifty pounds. That is roughly the temper of the place: very old, very self-possessed, and not especially impressed by anybody.

Day by day

Day 1 in Kilkenny

The Tholsel, the Black Abbey and a long dinner

The train gets in at the top of the town and the whole of Kilkenny is downhill from there. Walk in along the High Street, which has been the main street since the Normans laid it out, and get your bearings before anything closes.

Two short stops this evening and then dinner, which in Kilkenny is a proper event rather than a refuelling stop.

  1. 16:00

    Tholsel

    Architecture

    The arcaded town hall of 1761, halfway along the High Street, with the city arms carved over the lowest arch. A tholsel was a tolls hall: tax office, courtroom and guild chamber in one building. They are close to unique to Ireland and only a handful survive.

  2. 16:45

    Black Abbey

    Religious

    A Dominican house of 1225, built deliberately outside the walls so it could serve the Norman town and the Irish one at once. It became a courthouse, then Cromwell wrecked it, then it was rebuilt from 1866, and it is still a working church with very good glass. The last surviving gate of the city walls stands two hundred metres east.

  3. 19:30

    Campagne

    Eat

    The smartest kitchen in the southeast, a few minutes from the station, doing serious cooking with Kilkenny and Waterford produce. Book it before you travel, especially at a weekend, and go hungry.

With more time: If you would rather eat cheaply, do: the pubs on Parliament Street serve better food than they need to, and the money saved buys a second night out. Either way, finish somewhere with music rather than a television.

Day 2 in Kilkenny

The castle, Rothe House and the round tower

The whole day is one street, walked slowly from the bottom to the top: castle, merchant house, cathedral. It is about a mile, and the drop from the Norman end to the Irish end is most of the town's history in walking order.

Start at the castle when it opens, because the guided tours fill by mid morning and the parkland behind it is at its best before the town wakes up. Then work north.

Finish at the cathedral, and climb the tower. It is ladders rather than stairs, it is not for anybody nervous about heights or small children, and the view over the black roofs of the city is the thing you will remember from Kilkenny.

  1. 09:30

    Kilkenny Castle

    Historic

    Begun in 1195 to hold the ford over the Nore, and the seat of the Butlers for nearly six centuries. The interiors are Victorian rather than medieval, and the long picture gallery with its painted roof is the room worth the ticket. The parkland behind it is free and open to everybody.

  2. 12:00

    Rothe House

    Culture

    A merchant's house built between 1594 and 1610: three separate houses one behind the other, with a cobbled courtyard between each and a walled Tudor garden at the back. It sits on a burgage plot, the long thin strip of rented land that gives Irish towns their odd proportions, and the garden is the surprise.

  3. 13:45

    Lunch at the top of the town

    Eat

    The cafes around the top of Parliament Street feed the town rather than the coaches, and the walk uphill will have earned it.

  4. 15:15

    St Canice's Cathedral & Round Tower

    Religious

    The church that gave Kilkenny its name, rebuilt in the thirteenth century and second in length only to St Patrick's in Dublin. The round tower beside it is ninth century, which makes it far older than the cathedral, and adults can climb it by ladders for the best view in the county.

With more time: The riverside path below the castle runs south along the Nore under the trees and is the best half hour in Kilkenny that costs nothing. It also gets you back to the centre without walking the High Street a third time.

Day 3 in Kilkenny

St John's, and the tower on the east bank

A short last morning on the far side of the river, which is the side visitors usually never cross and where the station is anyway.

Two ruins, ten minutes apart, and both odder than they look from the road. Then the train.

  1. 09:30

    St John's Priory

    Religious

    An Augustinian priory of 1220 with a Lady Chapel added in 1290, most of it pulled down in 1780 and the stone carted off to build a barracks. What is left was re-roofed in 1817 and is a working parish church, with the thirteenth century chapel ruins and their carvings standing open beside it.

  2. 10:30

    Maudlin Tower

    Architecture

    A sixteenth century tower that guarded a hospital founded around 1327, outside the walls and walled again itself. It was a leper house, which in practice meant anybody with a disfiguring illness, and the walls were there to keep the patients in as much as the town out.

With more time: With a car and a spare afternoon, drive west instead. The Rock of Cashel is fifty minutes away: a cathedral, a round tower and a Romanesque chapel on a limestone outcrop above the Tipperary plain, and one of the two or three best things to look at in Ireland.

Before you go

Where to stay

Inside the medieval core, along or just off the High Street, which puts every single thing in these three days within a ten minute walk. Kilkenny is a weekend town, so Friday and Saturday cost roughly double Tuesday and sell out for the summer festivals.

The east bank across the river is quieter, cheaper and five minutes from the station, which suits an early train. It is not a scenic side of town, but you are not going to be in the room.

Getting here, and getting around

Trains from Dublin Heuston take ninety minutes, eight a day from Monday to Saturday and five on Sunday, and continue south to Waterford. Coaches from Dublin airport take a little under two hours. The station is called MacDonagh, after one of the men executed for the Easter Rising, and it is a five minute walk from the centre.

Walk. There is no reason to drive here, parking is the one genuine irritation in town, and everything worth walking to is inside half a square kilometre. A car only earns its keep for the countryside: the priories, the caves and the Rock of Cashel are all car country.

Eating and drinking

Kilkenny eats better than a town this size should, partly because it is a weekend destination and partly because the Nore valley farms feed it. Book Friday and Saturday dinner before you arrive; walk in on any other night.

Beer has been brewed here since 1710, on a site by the river that has now gone over to a visitor centre rather than a brewery, and the local red ale is still what you order without thinking. The pubs along Parliament Street and John Street run music at the weekend, and the good ones do not have a sign about it outside.

When to come, and when not to

The town has two big festivals: comedy at the start of June and arts in August. Both are excellent and both fill every bed within twenty miles, so book months ahead or pick a different week deliberately.

Otherwise May, September and October are the best of it: long enough light for the walking and no coach parties on the castle lawn. Winter weekends are cheap, dark by half four and, in a town that is mostly interiors and pubs, entirely workable.

Kilkenny is the rare small town that does not need a hook. There is no single unmissable thing here, which is exactly why it works: you walk a street, look at what is on it, and it turns out to be nine hundred years of the same argument between a castle and a cathedral.

Come on a weekend if you want the town at full volume and midweek if you want it to yourself. Both are the real thing.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Kilkenny worth three days?
Two nights, yes. The medieval city is a full day walked properly, the evenings are the other half of the point, and the last morning fills itself. A third night only makes sense with a car, when the priories and caves of the county open up.
Can I do it as a day trip from Dublin?
You can, and plenty do: ninety minutes each way by train, six hours in town, and you would see the castle and the cathedral. You would miss the evening, which is what separates Kilkenny from a heritage site.
What is worth the admission and what is free?
The castle and the cathedral tower are worth paying for. The castle parkland, the abbey, the tholsel, the riverside path and everything on the last morning are free. Rothe House is cheap and better than it sounds from the outside.
Where should I go next?
South, on the same line: Waterford is thirty five minutes further and is the oldest city in Ireland. West by road, the Rock of Cashel is under an hour. North, Dublin is ninety minutes, which makes Kilkenny an easy first or last stop on a longer trip.
Can I change this itinerary?
Yes. Copy it, add a night, put a car day in the middle for the county. The one thing worth keeping is the order of the second day, which walks downhill to uphill and ends at the tower.