Things to Do in County Kilkenny

More about County Kilkenny

Where to stay, and when the city fills up

For almost every visitor the answer is Kilkenny city itself. It is small enough that you can leave the car for two days, most of the county’s beds are here, and nothing else in Kilkenny is more than forty minutes away. The catch is the festival calendar: the comedy festival over the June bank holiday weekend and the arts festival in August both take the city’s rooms months in advance, and so does any weekend Kilkenny are playing a hurling championship match. Book early or stay out of town on those dates. If you want country rather than city, Thomastown sits on the Nore twenty minutes south with the abbeys on its doorstep, and Mount Juliet nearby is the grand option — an 18th-century estate with a Nicklaus golf course and a walled-garden restaurant. Inistioge and Graiguenamanagh are both river villages with a handful of rooms each, quiet in the evening and better placed for the Barrow than for the city.

The Medieval Mile on foot

The city’s spine runs from the castle at one end to the cathedral at the other, and walking it end to end takes twenty minutes without stopping — which nobody does. Kilkenny Castle charges for the guided or self-guided interior but the parkland along the Nore is free and open daily, and the old stable block opposite now holds the Design Centre, which is the best single place in the county to buy craft. At the other end, the round tower beside St Canice’s is a separate ticket from the cathedral, a steep climb on internal ladders, closed in bad weather and not open to children under twelve; the view over the slate roofs is the reward. In between, the Medieval Mile Museum is a converted 13th-century church holding the city’s collection of carved Butler tombs, and Rothe House is a merchant’s complex of three houses, three courtyards and a reconstructed garden running back to the old town wall. Kyteler’s Inn trades on Alice Kyteler, tried for witchcraft in 1324, whose maid was burned in her place; it is a normal pub with music most nights. Smithwick’s Experience occupies the old St Francis Abbey brewery site, where brewing goes back to 1710.

Down the Nore

The Nore valley south of the city is where the county’s ruins are. Jerpoint is the one to prioritise — the carved cloister figures repay a slow look, and the OPW guides are unusually good; it runs on a season of roughly March to early November, so check before a winter trip. A field away, Newtown Jerpoint is a vanished medieval town of house platforms and a ruined church, visitable only on a guided farm walk in season, with a grave slab claimed locally for St Nicholas. Kilfane Glen is a Romantic-period garden built around a waterfall and a thatched cottage orné, open a short summer season only. On the craft side, Bennettsbridge has the pottery and Jerpoint Glass at Stoneyford lets you watch glass being blown at the furnace. Inistioge’s ten-arch bridge and lime-planted square have been used in enough films that they will look familiar.

The Barrow and the hills

The eastern edge of the county belongs to the Barrow rather than the Nore. The Barrow Way towpath is flat, grassy and almost entirely traffic-free — you can walk a few kilometres out of Graiguenamanagh and back in an afternoon, or take a longer stretch north towards Goresbridge. Graiguenamanagh itself has Duiske Abbey, a Cistercian church restored back into parish use, and Cushendale, a woollen mill still weaving on the same site after centuries. Above the town, Brandon Hill is the county’s highest at just over 500 m and gives a three-to-four hour return walk with the Blackstairs and the Barrow valley laid out from the top. Boots rather than trainers — the upper section is boggy after rain.

Wet days and days with children

Dunmore Cave is the reliable indoor hour: guided tours only, a long flight of steps down and back up, and a genuinely grim story about a Viking raid in 928 backed by the bones and the coin hoard found there. Castlecomer Discovery Park sits on old coal-mining ground north of the city with woodland trails, boats on the lake and the zipline. Jurassic Newpark on the Castlecomer road is exactly what it sounds like and works for younger children.

Getting around

Kilkenny is about ninety minutes from Dublin and sits on the Dublin–Waterford railway, which makes a car-free city break workable. Everything beyond the city, though, is thin on public transport — for Jerpoint, Kells or the Barrow you will want a car. City parking is metered and tight on Saturdays; the multi-storeys are the easier bet.