Kilkenny is a Renaissance city: it is all about light, space and intimacy. Enjoy the sun striking the superb double-doored and triple-arched west doorway of St Canice's Cathedral. It is a confident, self-possessed place with a busy arts profile contributing to its tourism.
The town that received its city charter as long ago as 1609 has a remarkable history, multi-layered and more evident than that of many places. The continuity of that past is eloquently expressed by the presence of Kilkenny Castle, in which a 19th-century castellated baronial residence retains strong traces of the medieval fortress it once was.
Whether explored in the early morning, late at night or at the height of a Saturday afternoon when shoppers fill High Street (a long narrow thoroughfare broadening in the middle in deference to its former function as a medieval market place), Kilkenny appears the ideal size for a city. At one end of High Street/ Parliament Street is St Canice's, flanked by Kilkenny's oldest building, the round tower, probably dating from 1100. Beyond the other end, looms the castle. The Tholsel arcade comes into view, and with it images of the Middle Ages. Its name, according to John Bradley, is derived from two old English words: "toll", meaning tax; and "sael", or hall, the place where tolls were paid. Now city hall, in the Middle Ages it would have served as court house, custom-house, guildhall and a meeting place for merchants. The original Tholsel was further up the street. It was moved to its present site about 1579. Construction began on the existing building in 1759 and was completed two years later. Here, as at Rothe House or in the various lanes and passage ways, such as the Butter Slip and the Market Slip, it is impossible not to be aware of the medieval, and particularly the wider European medieval world.
Cill Chainnigh (Canice's Church), draws its name from a sixth-century saint. The ancient monastery, once established here, heralded the beginning of its significance as a religious centre of Ossory. Later it became one of the convening places for Anglo-Irish parliaments.
The early settlement owed a great deal to its geographical location on the Nore and in the heart of a fertile plain. There was also the arrival of the Vikings. Enter Anglo-Normans in 1169. They established a castle by 1173.
In 1207, William Marshal son-in-law of the by-then-dead Strongbow and therefore his heir and successor to all of Leinster, came to Kilkenny and issued a charter. By 1391, an important Kilkenny name emerged, with James Butler, third earl of Ormond purchasing the manor and castle of Kilkenny. The castle became the main seat of the Earls of Ormond.
The town was from this point the centre of an Anglo-Irish lordship which never returned to either old-Irish hands or culture. The year 1366 saw the enactment of the notorious Statutes of Kilkenny, a ruthless, apartheid-like bid to counter the threatened Gaelicisation of the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland. Relations between the Irish and colonists were forbidden. During the winter of 1348-9, the Black Death tore through Kilkenny. The Tudor period witnessed the rise of the merchant class, personified by John Rothe, who built his famous house, a complex of three buildings including courtyards, which remains to this day.
BETWEEN 1642 and 1648, the Confederation of Kilkenny sat in the new city, and from 1645 within the castle. The Butler seat was to prove a poor choice for the Catholic cause, as it made it too easy for the Marquess of Ormonde, representative of Charles I, to exert his influence. James Butler, the 12th Earl of Ormonde, acquired the "e" by an official spelling error in 1643 when being elevated to marquess.
Ormonde dissolved the Confederation and established a royalist garrison. The king was expected in 1649. On March 22nd, 1650, Cromwell arrived. After a week-long siege, Kilkenny surrendered with honour, and offers were made. But a period of suppression followed. Catholics were banned. The citizens were ordered to Connacht. Cromwell died in 1658. When Charles II came to the throne, Kilkenny's fortunes improved and James Butler, who had returned with him from exile in France, became Duke of Ormonde and lord lieutenant of Ireland. He transformed the castle, easing it from medieval fortress to a more romantic dwelling in the French chateau style, pre-dating its present baronial form. The Butler name was all-powerful, peaking in 1691, but by 1715, the glory days of power and the possession of about two million acres had passed, although the castle remained in the family until it was given to the city in 1967 by Arthur, the sixth marquess. The family had left in 1935.
Kilkenny in the 18th and 19th centuries experienced increased religious tension. But it was also beginning to develop its industries, textiles and brewing, with the latter moving from private to commercial. The decline of the 19thcentury and most of the 20th, has been forgotten in Kilkenny's present popularity as a cultural and tourism centre.