Kilkenny

Kilkenny, the capital of the county of that name, is also a county of a city and parliamentary burgh, returning one member to parliament. It is situated on the Nore, 81 miles SW. of Dublin by rail. Pop. (1851) 19,975; (1891) 11,048. At one time it was the seat of busy linen and woollen manufactures, but very little of either now remains. It is still, however, the centre of a considerable industry in marble-polishing. In the neighbourhood are extensive quarries of shelly black marble, which is in extensive request for chimney-pieces, tombstones, and other purposes. The name is Celtic—Cil-Canice—the church of St Canice or Kenny, a building dating from 1052 and the largest ecclesiastical edifice in Ireland except St Patrick's at Dublin. It is in the Early English style, 226 feet long by 123 across the transepts. There are many old sepulchral monuments, and quite close to the south transept are the remains of a round tower still 100 feet high. Other ecclesiastical remains are the preceptory of St John's, founded in 1211; the Dominican abbey, founded in 1225, still used as a Roman Catholic church; and the Franciscan abbey, founded in 1230. In 1857 was erected the Roman Catholic cathedral, at a cost of £30,000, a handsome building with a massive central tower 186 feet high. On a precipitous rock above the Nore is the famous castle of Strongbow and his son and successor, dating from about 1175, and restored during the 19th century as a place of residence for the Marquis of Ormonde. The grammar-school, founded in the 16th century, also stands on the banks of the river, fronting the castle, and here Swift, Congreve, and Bishop Berkeley received their education. Near the city is the Roman Catholic college of St Kyran. Several parliaments were held at Kilkenny in the 14th century, and even down to Henry VIII. it was the residence, occasionally at any rate, of the lord-lieutenant. It was here that in 1367 was passed the stringent 'Statute of Kilkenny,' meant to prevent the Anglo-Irish from becoming more Irish—prohibiting intermarriage, &c.—and here that in 1642 the Assembly of Confederate Catholics gathered. Cromwell laid siege to the city in 1648, and in 1650 it capitulated on honourable terms. The principal trade of the city is now in provisions, through the port of Waterford, by which it is united both by river and rail. The fable of the 'Kilkenny cats,' which fought till nothing but the tails were left, was a satire on the contentions of Kilkenny and Irishtown in the 17th century about boundaries and rights, which went on till both towns were impoverished.