In the early afternoon we had a walking tour of Kilkenny. The colorful buildings of Kilkenny are appealing - no cookie-cutter strip malls here! In our opinion, that is one of the best things about Europe.
We met our tour guide Joe in front of the Kilkenny Design Centre, where we would have lunch later. We had time to go up for a hot cup of tea, then re-gathered outside and started walking. Today the streets were decorated in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day. We will be in Dublin then, but I'm sure every town does something to celebrate.
A couple of young guys were playing some great Irish music on the street. We look forward to hearing a lot of this in the pubs, but this was a great introduction to it!
One of the little alleyways is known as the Butter Slip. It's a little passageway that connects runs under a couple of houses and connects two main streets, and back in 1616 it was where butter vendors had their stalls. Nowadays were are a couple of small stores near the end of it, but unfortunately no butter vendors.
St. Mary's church is surrounded by the city now. It used to be the main Catholic Church of the city, used by the merchant class. Henry VIII changed it to a Protestant church and in 1950 it was deconsecrated.
Joe said the between 12,000 and 13,000 people were buried here, mostly in crypts. Regular folks were buried near the wall while rich people were buried near the church. Anyone buried by the wall didn't have a marker so it's hard to know how many are there. I was fascinated by the little graveyard tucked around back. Some of the large thin headstones have been leaned against the church wall but many are still in their rightful place.
We learned that in Galic, Kilkenny Courthouse is spelled "Teach Cuirt Chill Chainnaigh". It's been a customs house, courthouse (there were some hangings here) and guildhall. Now it's a city hall, which is spelled "Tholsel". So naturally it's pronounced "Tolsel".
The written language of Galic (Irish) is so beautiful. I've seen enough Tolkin movies to think this looks a lot like Elvish.
In 1582 an Alms House was founded by the Shee family in 1582 to accommodate 12 poor locals - 6 men upstairs and 6 women downstairs. Like so many others, the family was dispossessed by scumbag Cromwell but they regained it in 1756 and operated it as an alms house until 1830.
Smithwick's was originally brewed by monks. It used to be brewed here until Guinniss bought them out and moved the process elsewhere.
One of famous places here is Kyteler's Inn. Back in the early 1300s Alice le Kyteler managed to have four husbands, getting richer each time one of them died. When her fourth husband got ill, he changed his will to cut out his heirs and leave everything to Alice. They didn't like that so they accused her of "bewitching" him (we would have called her a gold-digger but witchcraft raised the stakes). This led to a lot of awful, ridiculous accusations and things didn't look good for Alice so she high-tailed it out of the country and went to England. The trial went on anyway, with some seriously sexist results: her son was ordered to attend mass daily and give alms, while her maid Petronilla was whipped and burned at the stake.
Eventually our walking tour ended us up back at the castle. This beauty was started in the 12th century by the 2nd Earl of Penbroke, know as Strongbow. In 1391 James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormande, bought it and his family owned it for the next 500 years. According to Joe, the Butler family fortunes started back in time by Theobald Walter who was the Chief Butler of Ireland. That lead to high offices and a lot of money. Our tour didn't include going inside the castle, but Joe said it had been restored to Victorian style, based on old photographs. I like Victorian style but I love Medieval more, so I wasn't tempted to pay for an inside tour, and we didn't have enough time anyway. There was plenty to see outside, like the Republic of Ireland statue, which looks pretty Greek to me.
The lines of the castle are amazing; stairs seem to flow out from the doorway.
This castle originally had four wings with a courtyard in the center. In 1650 that scumbag Cromwell damaged the 4th side so badly that it had to be torn down, so there are just 3 wings now, and 2 of those were rebuilt along the way.
Inside one of the oldest towers a video is set up to show a bit of the history. I was impressed how thick the walls are at this point.
The front of the castle faces the roadway now. Good place for a photo op!
Now it was time for our scheduled lunch at the Kilenny Design Center. This used to be the stables for the castle across the street. Now it's lots of tidy shops, with a great view out the back.
Randy had the herb potato pancake and I ordered beef cottage pie. Dessert was a meringue nest with fresh fruit and cream. I need to get used to the fact that they don't add sugar to their whipped cream.
We didn't have anything scheduled for the next couple of hours so we joined Joe, Gary & Erin and Aaron & Glenda to revisit some of what we'd seen on the tour. Among other things, we wanted to find a pub. We ended up at the Marble City Bar (Kilkenny marble is a limestone that shines like marble when it's wet). There wasn't food or live music but there was Guinness! And the bartender knew how to put a nice crowning head on it.
Later Brendan drove everyone back to the hotel. We were on our own for dinner so Brendan offered to drive folks into town but we would have to walk back. Only Aaron, Glenda, Randy and I decide to go. Brendan drove us there around 5:30 and recommended Lanigan's for dinner, but we wanted to walk awhile. So we strolled on, asking a few locals for other suggestions. Along the way a group of ladies partying very hard bumped into us (literally). They were having a great time; I just hope they remember it tomorrow! We walked to several places before finding one we liked (this would be a trend for us). We ended up at Rafter's Dempsey on Friary St. Outside was a sign proclaiming ....something. I later discovered this is a "symbol of quality" (good housekeeping seal of approval?) and that Tabhairne means "pub".
This was a quintessential pub, with lots of beers on tap, a back wall full of bottles, and sports on the TV.
We decided to eat in the main room with its larger tables and a fireplace. Aaron tried the 3 ale samples for 5.7 and Randy ordered Guinness. For dinner Glenda and I had fish and chips (ok but not great) with our Cokes and the guys ordered the steak and shrimp (great!). The waitress brought the steaks out on a hot stone, sizzling on one side and just about ready to flip over.
Afterwards it was an easy walk of about 2.4 kilometers back to the hotel. What a lovely end to the day!
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