Kilkenny

Kilkenny takes its name from Cill Chainnigh, the church of Cainnech or Canice, who founded a monastery in the 6th century on the hill where St Canice's Cathedral and its round tower now stand, in the Kingdom of Ossory. It was a major monastic centre by the 8th century. After the Norman invasion Strongbow, as Lord of Leinster, built a castle by the river, William Marshal gave the town a charter in 1207, and walls went up to protect the burghers of a Norman merchant town. The walled borough became known as Hightown, and the old church settlement outside it as Irishtown.

In 1324 the Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede, brought one of Ireland's earliest recorded witchcraft cases against Dame Alice Kyteler and her servant Petronella de Meath; Alice fled, and Petronella was burned at the stake. The Black Death arrived in 1348, and the Statutes of Kilkenny, passed here in 1367, aimed to halt the decline of the Hiberno-Norman lordship. After the rebellion of 1641 the city became the seat of the Irish Catholic Confederation, the "Confederation of Kilkenny", until the Cromwellian conquest of 1649. James II spent the winter of 1689–90 in the castle.

The Butler family, Marquesses of Ormonde, held the castle until 1967, when the 6th Marquess sold it to the people of the city for £50. The government's Kilkenny Design Workshops opened in the city in the 1960s and gave the city a lasting reputation for craft and design. Smithwick's ale was brewed here from 1710 until the brewery closed in 2013 and production moved to Dublin; the site is now a visitor centre.

Hurling dominates local life. Kilkenny has one of the most successful county hurling teams in the country, the players and their supporters are known as the Cats, and Nowlan Park, opened in 1927 and named after the long-serving GAA president James Nowlan, is their home ground; it also stages big summer concerts. Local schools are known for their hurling and camogie.

Kilkenny's theatre tradition goes back to 1366, when a Dublin company set up in the town. The Watergate Theatre is the centre for the performing and visual arts, Cleere's pub and theatre on Parliament Street hosts touring bands, and the Set Theatre on John Street is a smaller stage. The festival calendar is full for a city of its size: the Roots festival of Americana and bluegrass in May, the Cat Laughs comedy festival, founded in 1994, in June, the Kilkenny Arts Festival, founded in 1974, in August, and Savour Kilkenny in October. Since 2016 the city has also been the base for Rás na mBan, a women's cycle race.

Local black marble, known as Kilkenny marble, decorates many buildings and gives the city its nickname, the Marble City; it was used for the plinth of Richard III's new tomb in Leicester Cathedral. The tale of Alice Kyteler still feeds local folklore, and her name lives on in the pub on St Kieran's Street.

The 2022 census counted about 27,000 people in the urban area, the thirteenth-largest urban centre in Ireland; most of them live outside the old borough boundary, in suburbs that have grown around the medieval core. It is the county town and the seat of two bishops — Catholic at St Mary's and Church of Ireland at St Canice's.

The economy rests on services, tourism and food. Glanbia, one of the world's largest dairy and nutrition companies, grew out of the merger of County Kilkenny's village creameries and has its head office here, and the farmland around the city is given over to dairy and tillage. Hebron Industrial Estate is the main centre for industry, alongside newer business parks opened in the early 2000s. Tourism fills the centre in summer, when coach groups and day visitors walk the Medieval Mile.

Life is that of a busy county town: High Street shopping, the pub in the evening, and hurling at the weekend, when club and county matches draw much of the city to Nowlan Park and the surrounding pitches.

Kilkenny's best-known product is Smithwick's, an Irish red ale first brewed here in 1710 by John Smithwick. Irish red ale takes its colour from kilned malts and roasted barley and is usually between 3.8 and 4.8 per cent alcohol. The brewery also made Kilkenny ale, a close relation; both are now brewed in Dublin, but the old site on the Medieval Mile runs brewery tours.

The county's farms supply much of what is eaten here. The fertile Nore Valley around the city is dairy and tillage country, and the creameries of the county were the origin of Glanbia. The Nore near Thomastown is known for its salmon and trout. The Castle Yard, in the old stables opposite the castle, has a food hall alongside the craft shops.

The old pubs are the places most visitors eat: Kyteler's Inn, in a building with a medieval vaulted undercroft, serves food with traditional music, and pubs along High Street, Parliament Street and John Street serve bar food. Each October Savour Kilkenny gathers the county's producers and cooks for the city's food festival.