Ireland's medieval capital — Norman castle, Smithwick's ale, and a city that still feels lived-in
Kilkenny is the best-preserved medieval city in Ireland — a compact city of limestone towers, narrow medieval lanes, and 800-year-old fortifications that were never swept away by 20th-century development because Kilkenny simply wasn't important enough to demolish. Kilkenny Castle, occupied from 1195 to 1935, dominates the River Nore from a bluff; Black Abbey, Black Freren Gate, and Kyteler's Inn (where Dame Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft in 1324) fill out a medieval map that actually makes sense on foot. The Smithwick's brewery has been brewing ale in the ruins of a Franciscan friary…
Kilkenny was the de facto capital of Anglo-Norman Ireland in the medieval period — the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366), which forbade the English settlers from adopting Irish customs, were passed here in one of 28 parliaments held in the city. The Butler family (Earls of Ormond) controlled Kilkenny and its castle from 1391 to 1935, when the 6th Marquess of Ormonde donated it to the Irish state. The city's famous hurling tradition (Kilkenny has won the All-Ireland Hurling Championship a record number of times) is woven into the city's identity as deeply as the medieval walls.