Discover Kilkenny

The Marble City

Kilkenny grew up around two powers facing each other across the River Nore: the Anglo-Norman castle the Butler family held for nearly six hundred years, and the church of St Canice on the high ground to the north, which gives the city its name (Cill Chainnigh, the church of Canice). The medieval town that filled the space between them is still legible on the ground, in the narrow slips linking the main streets, the Tholsel on High Street, the Bull Ring where the market was held, and the surviving stretches of the old city walls. The dark Kilkenny limestone underfoot and overhead is the Marble City in two words.

For all its age, Kilkenny is not a museum. It has been Ireland's craft and design capital since the Kilkenny Design Workshops opened in the castle stables in 1965, and that reputation lives on in the National Craft Gallery, the Kilkenny Design Centre and the potters, glassblowers and weavers scattered through the county at Bennettsbridge, Stoneyford and Graiguenamanagh. It brews: Smithwick's was made on the St Francis Abbey site from 1710. And it lives for hurling, the county team being the most successful in the history of the game. Compact, confident and well fed, Kilkenny rewards a slow visit.