Kilkenny

Last week was mid-term break so Pia and Ella had a mini-break and had Thursday and Friday off school. So on Friday we headed south to Kilkenny, a beautiful medieval town. After a brief walk around the city centre, we headed over to the castle. You can't miss noticing the castle as you enter the city - it is huge and is a very dramatic presence in the city. Behind the castle there are huge parklands and beautiful green open spaces. As you will see below, I managed to take photos of the castle from almost every angle - but each angle just looked so impressive!

Above is the main entrance to the castle. The original castle was built in the early 13th century but it later became the main Irish residence of the powerful Butler family for almost 600 years. In fact, the same family owned the castle until 1967 when it was presented to the people of Kilkenny for the grand total of 50 pounds! Since that time much of the inside of the castle has been restored and many of the rooms on the ground floor, first floor and second floor have been redone to look like rooms from a stately home, as the castle was most recently used. The main lounge room / drawing room was actually used in the film "Circle of Friends". Outside the castle are beautiful gardens.

There is also a great outlook over the River Nore.

The Medieval Foundation level of the castle dates from the 13th century and here you can see the original foundations of the castle, part of the dry moat and these thin little defensive windows which were built so that it was easy to shoot out arrows but not for them to enter.

There are also two of these underground passageways outside the castle which allowed servants to enter and exit the castle without being seen - people of their position were not considered important enough to be actually seen walking within the castle grounds!

 

While James, Pia and I enjoyed our visit of Kilkenny Castle, Ella was not as impressed and declared that she thought the castle was "lethal". According to Ella, it was too big and too scary and it might fall down at any moment and you could even get lost in there and then you would starve to death and die of thirst! She much preferred the playground in the parklands behind the castle as you can see below.

After a play in the park we then spent some more time wandering the beautiful medieval streets of Kilkenny, many of which still have little medieval slip lanes linking them to other roads.

 

 

The building above is called the Tholsel. Its name comes from two old English words: "toll" (tax) and "sael", (hall), the place where taxes were paid. In the Middle Ages it served as court house, custom-house and was once also a covered market place.  The house below, now a museum, is called Rothe House and it is the only example of an early 17th century merchant’s townhouse in Ireland.

The current courthouse (above) certainly looks like a very foreboding place. We are also loving all the Irish Green postboxes that you see dotted around everywhere. 

 

 

Opposite the castle is the Kilkenny Design Shop, a very dangerous place to visit because there are so many beautiful Irish-made and designed products to buy (which we did!) The Butler gardens behind the design centre are also beautiful and it was nice to see some signs of Spring on its way.

The water feature in the gardens also features some of the remnants of Nelson Column which used to stand in O'Connell St. Dublin until it was blown up by anti-British nationalists in 1966. I'm not sure why these blocks of letters were brought to Kilkenny but they do look rather at home in the gardens now!

We were so excited to see our first Irish squirrel in a tree - but alas, it was just the new Irish red squirrel Pia bought at the Kilkenny Design Centre playing a trick on us - we are yet to spot a real, live Irish squirrel!!

After all this sightseeing it was time to relax with an Irish ale in a pub! We originally went in search of a Kilkenny beer but were told that only the tourists drink that! Instead, we were recommended to try the local brew, Smithwick's, which I have to saw was very nice! Of course, we had to have a Guinness as well. This was followed by a great Italian meal (with great gluten-free pizza!) at La Rivista.

 

 

The next day we walked over to St. Canice's Cathedral, the second-largest medieval cathedral in Ireland. St. Canice is the patron saint of Kilkenny and the cathedral is famous for its round tower, similar to the one we saw in Glendalough. The round tower is estimated to have been built around the year 800 and again was important as a means of defending oneself from those pesky vikings!

As the morning was quite clear, we were allowed to climb up to the top of the tower. To get to the top, there are a series of long, narrow, wooden stairs that keep on going and going until you finally reach the top. Pia and Ella took one look at the first lot of stairs and decided they did not want to climb them ( a wise decision!) They waited for us on seats at the bottom. James and I decided to proceed, something which I regretted about half way up as the stairs got steeper and steeper and the tower got darker and darker! It was also around then that I remembered that I did not like heights anymore. But by then it was too late and I had to keep going. The view from the top, when we finally got there, was amazing and I managed to hold the camera steady long enough to take a few photos before I had to tackle the descent! It was nice to reach ground level again!

It was then time to leave Kilkenny and we headed off on a scenic drive through Thomastown where we saw the ruins of Jerpoint Abbey, established in the 12th century. Unfortunately, the ruins were closed on the weekends (why??) so I had to be content with peering through locked gates!

We also drove through the pretty little village of Inistioge, which has such beautiful typical Irish countryside that many Irish films are shot here, including once again, "Circle of Friends".

James has also been keen to continue in some way the many visits we did while in America to the homes of former US Presidents. So when he realised that we were not far from New Ross, the birthplace of JFK's great grandfather, we of course, had to visit. His home is at the end of a very long and narrow road seemingly in the middle of nowhere and when we got there it was closed! It actually is in the process of being restored and a visitor's centre is being built there to coincide with the 50th anniversary of JFK's visit there in 1963. It is due to be opened in the summer of this year so we will obviously be returning before the year is out!

So that capped off a couple of lovely days around Kilkenny and we were once again lucky to have good weather - no rain and quite a bit of sun on our trip. It has been a week now with no rain which is actually very exciting! We are making the most of the dry weather to visit Phoenix Park tomorrow (Dublin's equivalent of Central Park, New York) to hopefully spot some of those real, live Irish squirrels. I'll let you know how we go!