Kilkenny City, Ireland

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This page is the link to each of the cities on the island of Ireland and specifically is for the City Of Kilkenny, Ireland. You can go to the Category for Kilkenny City here

Armagh (1994), Lisburn & Newry (2002), although cities, are not included above.

Part of the Ireland Project

Work in progress

Kilkenny (Cill Chainnigh in Irish meaning Cell/Church of Cainneach or Canice). The name relates to a church built in honour of St. Canice, an Ulsterman, on the hill now containing St. Canice's Cathedral and the round tower. This seems to be the first major settlement. The early Christian origin of the round tower suggests an early ecclesiastical foundation at Kilkenny.

AD 1085. Kilkenny was for the most part burned.^[1]

AD 1324. Kilkenny was the site of Ireland's earliest recorded witch trial. Occurring in 1324 and instigated by the then Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede, the trial involved Dame Alice de Kyteler and her servant Petronella de Meath. Petronella would be the first person recorded in Ireland to be burned alive at the stake for witchcraft, after Dame Alice presumably fled the country. This trial was also one of the earliest recorded witch burnings in Europe and inspires much folklore about the possibility of the ghosts of Alice and Petronella haunting downtown Kilkenny. Alice's house, Kyteler's Inn, still stands and is now a pub.

AD 1609. In 1609, King James I of England granted Kilkenny a Royal Charter giving it the status of a city. Following the Rebellion of 1641, the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny", was based in Kilkenny and lasted until the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649.