As was evident in Belfast, history in Ireland is as very subjective, based on the one’s perspective. In the small town of Kilkenny, about 80 miles southwest of Dublin, their history recalls the death and destruction brought by Cromwell’s policies against Catholics in Ireland. We wander around the medieval quarter and the old streets and hear how St. Canice’s Cathedral was used as a stable by the English troops and we visit the Black Abbey, founded in 1225, once an early Dominican Friary, turned into a courthouse by Henry VIII, We visit this abbey in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon and yet the church was surprisingly half full and a resounding sermon was ongoing while the beautiful stained glass windows shed light on the parishioners.
There were old stone castles, including the massive Kilkenny Castle and the restored St. Canice’s the oldest round stone church tower in Europe. We stroll down small commercial streets with barber shops, clothes stores, and innumerable pubs, each small shop painted its own striking color combination.
Our AirBNB for 2 nights is a row house from the 1800’s situated right by the river that runs through town which geography greatly determined the city’s history and development.
Outside the main castle, we find an open market selling delicious food and local handicrafts and meet a gentlemen from the Kilkenny Tourist Information Office who regales us with stories of his family and what to see in his city. We learn for the first time about the intense investment of locals in the sport of Hurling and the also popular sport of Gaelic Football.
We see school children in uniform on what we understand is their last day of school before summer break, wearing sweaters with holes in the elbows worn from a year’s worth of pressure on desks and tables. The girls we see wear short skirts but we understand some schools allow the girls to wear pants as well – change comes even to Ireland. I have a different understanding now about Catholic schools having heard how during the 17th and 18th centuries Catholics (as well as non-Anglican Protestants) were forbidden to attend school here and so developed a clandestine culture of “hedge” schools enabling Catholic children to become literate.
Our first evening in Kilkenny we walk down the block, past an old public library to Matt the Millers for dinner and music. Very surprisingly, they had a whole separate vegan menu available – not our expectation in a small beer hall. The performer with guitar of traditional ballads was excellent as was the Irish piper, with small hand held pipes giving the singer a break now and then.
The second evening, we go to the highest-end hotel in town whose their restaurant/bar features nightly music and listen to two men with guitars although only a few people seemed to actually be paying attention to the performers. To our delight, this music was interspersed with a solo Irish dancer who has won the national Irish dance competition, performing her art in the bar on a wooden board placed on the floor with recorded music. She tapped and stamped and stood on her toes and kicked with tremendous agility and energy. Rich calculated that she took 48 steps a minute and I found she was too fast to be captured on one frame of iPhone photos. Rich also pointed out that although young and strong, she was breathing very heavily after only a few minutes of dancing. It is a physically demanding art we felt privileged to watch.
We pack up to meet our tour van and driver in the morning and I collapse exhausted into bed.