Kilkenny City Guide

Castle, Witch House & Round Tower

From the station to Kilkenny Castle, which after six centuries of Butler rule went to the citizens for fifty pounds, and through the rose garden. Then up the Medieval Mile: through the butter lane of 1616, past the tavern of Alice Kyteler, accused as a witch in 1324, to the Rothe House merchant's home and the Smithwick's brewery experience. At the end wait the Black Abbey and the round tower of St Canice's – 121 steps up ladders, and the whole town lies at your feet.

1. Kilkenny Castle & Rose Garden – A stone castle has watched over this river bend since 1213; from 1391 it was the seat of the Butlers, one of Ireland's most powerful families, for almost six hundred years. The end came quietly: in 1935 the family sold the contents and moved away, the castle decayed – until the last Marquess handed it to the citizens' restoration committee in 1967 for a symbolic fifty pounds. Today it belongs to the state, and you walk through Victorian drawing rooms and the long picture gallery with the Butler portraits. Afterwards take the terraced rose garden and the huge free park – the castle seen down the fountain axis is the first big photo of the day.
2. Butter Slip – The prettiest shortcut in town: the Butter Slip of 1616 links High Street with St Kieran's Street as a built-over stepped lane. Its name comes from the butter sellers who set up their stalls here – the narrow, shady lane was the coolest place far and wide, a natural refrigerator for dairy goods. Passing through, you walk beneath the house of Nicholas Langton, who received the town's charter from King James I in 1609. Along the way you get the most classic photo of the Medieval Mile.
3. Kyteler's Inn – This stone house tells Ireland's darkest courtroom story: in 1324 the Bishop of Ossory accused the wealthy merchant Alice Kyteler of witchcraft – Ireland's first documented witch trial. Alice, four times married and four times widowed, fled the country in time. The price was paid by her maid Petronilla de Meath: she was burned on 3 November 1324, the first documented burning for heresy on the island. Today the house, one of the town's oldest, is an inn once more, with medieval walls in the basement – sustenance at lunch, music at night, and the story on the walls thrown in.
4. Rothe House & Garden – Nowhere in Ireland can you see more completely how a rich merchant lived around 1600: John Rothe Fitz-Piers built himself three houses in a row between 1594 and 1610, linked by paved courtyards, with garden and orchard reaching to the town wall behind. The complex is considered the country's only completely preserved merchant's estate of the era. Today the Archaeological Society runs its museum here, with some 2,500 finds from town and county. The reconstructed garden, modelled on 17th-century patterns, is a small green time capsule in the middle of the centre.
5. Smithwick's Experience – Ireland's most famous red ale has an origin story with a false bottom: John Smithwick took over the brewery on the grounds of the medieval Franciscan abbey in 1710, where monks had brewed centuries before. As a Catholic he was officially not allowed to own property under the penal laws of the day – the family ran the business in the shadows for decades, only stepping forward as owners once the laws were eased. Brewing happens in Dublin these days; in return, the experience tour in the old Victorian brewery building leads through the whole story, with a freshly poured Smithwick's as the closing note.
6. Black Abbey – The Dominicans came to Kilkenny in 1225, and their "Black Abbey" – named after the friars' black capes – has survived everything since: confiscation under Henry VIII, who turned it into a courthouse, destruction under Cromwell in 1650, rebirth as a church in 1816. Its treasure glows in the south transept: the Rosary Window of 1892 from the Mayer workshop in Munich, some 45 square metres of stained glass with the fifteen mysteries – according to the Dominicans the largest church window in Ireland. A quiet, free stop – and the friars still live next door today.
7. St Canice's & Round Tower – The finale has two levels: below, the Gothic cathedral, completed in 1285, with medieval grave slabs of the famous black Kilkenny "marble" – which geologically is no marble at all but polished limestone, which once made the town's pavements gleam and earned it the name "Marble City". Beside it rises the star: a round tower from the 9th century, the town's oldest structure and one of the very few climbable round towers in Ireland. Via 121 steps and internal ladders you climb through seven levels to the platform – at the top the whole Medieval Mile lies at your feet, from the castle to the hills of Kilkenny. The worthiest closing note of the route.