Irish Arts Review

Kilkenny Past and PresentAuthor(s): John BradleySource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 25, No. 2 (Summer, 2008), pp. 108-113Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493323 .

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KILKENNY PAST AND PRESENT

ARCHITECTURE

Kilkenny is widely admired for its medieval and

Renaissance buildings, but is this architectural legacy

at risk today from a proposed Inner Relief Road,

asks JOHN BRADLEY

ilkenny is Ireland's best-known medieval city and 1 Grotesque head

it was the second town of Leinster until the growth from the bookcase in the library of the of Dublin's dormitory towns in the last quarter of Bishop's Palace

the 20th century. It lies on a meander of the south Photo Ros Kavanagh

flowing river Nore and is at the centre of a small plain, the 2 The Bishop's

ancient Mag Roigne, which forms the fertile heartland of Palace, Kilkenny,

County Kilkenny. The name Cill the headquarters of

County Kilkenny The name Ciii the Heritage Council

Chainnigh, 'Canice's church', pro- Restoration work by

vides clear evidence of the city's ori- OPW, new glass pavilion by Dawson

gin, although the church of Canice Stelfox

was not the earliest Christian foun- Photo Ros Kavanagh

dation. That distinction belongs to

St Patrick's Church, represented

today by a D-shaped graveyard on

the summit of a low rise immediately

south of the medieval town. First

mentioned in the late 7th century as

a martartech or house of relics, it is

also referred to as Domhnach M6r, 'large church', a place-name

that is of 5th or 6th-century origin.

Kilkenny's rise to ecclesiastical prominence as the principal

church of the diocese of Ossory can be explained partly by the

combination of geographical and economic factors that placed

the settlement near an important fording point and encom

passed it with a fertile agricultural hinterland but the key rea

son was political. In the mid 9th century Ossory produced an

ambitious king, Cerball mac Dunlainge (d. 888), who was the

most powerful king in Leinster in the 870s and 880s. As a con

sequence, Cerball's lands, and those of his Mac Gilla Patraic

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SUMMER 2008 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I 1 0 9

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KILKENNY PAST AND PRESENT

ARCHITECTURE

successors, namely the fertile plain around Kilkenny, became one of the major power centres in south eastern Ireland.

The church dedicated to Canice was established on a hill

overlooking the major fording point of the Nore beside Green's

Bridge. Nothing is known of the form of the early church, but an

examination of the modern street pattern indicates that it stood

within a large enclosure, similar to other large monasteries such

as Armagh and Kells. The surviving round tower was probably

constructed in (or shortly after) 1111, when St Canice's was des

ignated a cathedral. By the third quarter of the twelfth century

the Mac Gilla Patraic kings of Ossory had a residence at

Kilkenny in which they held court. Excavations at Kilkenny

By the late 15th century Kilkenny was ruled by an oligarchy of merchant families, principal among them being the Archers, Rothes and Shees

Castle have revealed evidence for bronze- and iron-working

associated with sod-building predating the initial Anglo

Norman earthwork castle, which may have been part of the Mac

Gilla Patraic residence.

By 1169, when the first Anglo-Normans arrived and were

accommodated in its 'ostels', Kilkenny was the largest and most

important inland settlement in south-east Ireland, and the old

centre was to endure as an independent borough, called

Irishtown, until 1843. Richard Stanihurst, the Dublin author,

tells us in 1577, that the townspeople of Irishtown constantly

emphasised it was the older settlement, and it is in the persist

ent squabbling over precedence between the corporations of

Irishtown and the Hightown (or Englishtown) that the nick name 'Kilkenny cats' originates.

It was not until the 1190s that the Anglo-Normans estab

lished a permanent settlement at Kilkenny. In c.1199 the burgesses of Kilkenny were given their first documented privi leges and this was followed in 1207 by a more detailed charter.

Excavations have revealed that the Anglo-Norman castle built

in the 1190s was an earth and timber structure. The present

stone building was begun in the early 13th century, probably in

the aftermath of William Marshal's visit in 1207. It was of quad

rangular plan with massive, circular corner towers, and a twin

bastioned entrance gate placed in the south wall. In 1391 the

castle was sold by Marshal's heirs to James Butler, third earl of

Ormond, and it remained in the hands of his descendants until

1969, when it was presented to the townspeople of Kilkenny,

together with the Castle Park.

The castle was at the southern boundary of a new Anglo

Norman town that was built along a single main street, called

High Street (hence Hightown), which stretched from the castle to Irishtown, giving the future city its distinctive linear plan.

The street, which is broader in the middle than at either end,

also functioned as the market place. Until recently, many of the

properties along High Street preserved the long, narrow burgage

plots characteristic of medieval towns throughout Western Europe. On each plot the owner, who was known as a burgess,

built a house for his family, usually with a shop on the street

frontage, and behind it there was space for outhouses, sheds,

yards, gardens and orchards. The new settlement was also pro

vided with its own parish church, St Mary's, which was in exis

tence by 1205. The Dominican priory (Figs 3&5), popularly

known as the 'Black Abbey', was established c. 1225 by William

Marshal the younger, while a Franciscan friary was founded by

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his brother Richard between 1231 and 1234. The town was

walled in the course of the 13th century with the help of murage

grants and the best surviving tower, Talbot's Bastion, is now in

the course of major conservation work.

St John's bridge was built before 1223 and a settlement,

known simply as St John's, grew up along the present John Street,

where it was concentrated around the Augustinian priory

founded in 1211. The leper hospital of St Mary Magdalen, situ

ated in Maudlin Street, seems to have been established around

the same time. Outside the walled town there were extensive

suburbs on the south, which was known as Donaghmore, on the

west, beyond Walkin's Gate and St James's Gate, and on the east

where the remains of a 13th- and 14th-century pot

ter's yard was excavated during the redevelopment

of the railway station. Apart from the castle, how

ever, the major building was St Canice's Cathedral

(Fig 4), which dominated Irishtown. Building work appears to have commenced on this fine Gothic

building about 1230 and it was completed in the

1280s. For the next six hundred years, until the con

struction of St Mary's Cathedral (1843-57), the cas

tle and the ancient cathedral were the most -

prominent buildings in the townscape. In general, the 14th century was a period of eco

nomic decline and the destructive impact of the

Black Death, which arrived in Kilkenny in 1348, was

graphically described by the Franciscan, Friar Clyn. The only building of any significance constructed in

its aftermath was the palace erected by Bishop

Richard de Ledrede between 1352 and 1360.

Ledrede was the notorious prosecutor of Dame Alice

Kyteler and had charged her with witchcraft and _

heresy in 1324. The result was a sensational trial that culminated

in the buming of Alice's servant, Petronilla of Meath. The

Bishop's Palace has been restored (by OPW architects John

Cahill, Hilary Vandenberghe and Aoife Hurley, while Dawson Stelfox created the new glass extension) and now functions as

the headquarters of the Heritage Council (Figs 2,7&9). During conservation work one wall was found that is likely to have been

part of Ledrede's palace. The remainder of the structure, how

ever, was later. A rectangular tower was added to the north-east

comer in the 16th century. Other additions were made in the

16th and 17th centuries but the building obtained its present

appearance in 1735-6 when it was completely remodelled by

3 The Black Abbey

(Dominican Priory)

Abbey Street,

Kilkenny, founded in

1225. Photo Don

Allen, courtesy NIAH

4 St Canice's

Cathedral (begun

1203) Photographic

Unit DoEHLG

5 The Rosary

window by Franz

Mayer and

Company, Munich

dates to 1892,

framed within a

Kilkenny limestone

surround dating to

1332. Photo Don

Allen, courtesy NIAH

6 A Panorama of

Kilkenny (Irish

School) c.1760

1800 oil on canvas

95.2 x 150.5cm

PhotoONational

Gallery of Ireland

SUMMER 2008 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I 111

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KILKENNY PAST AND PRESENT

ARCHITECTURE

Bishop Charles Este (1735-6). In the garden is the delightful rob

ing-room, which was built by Bishop Richard Pococke in 1760

and was originally connected to the cathedral with a colonnade.

By the late 15th century Kilkenny was ruled by an oligarchy of

merchant families, principal among them being the Archers,

Rothes and Shees. They benefited from the Dissolution of the

Monasteries because it placed lots of new land on the market.

Rothe House, the best surviving renaissance town house in

Kilkenny, was built by John Rothe in 1594 (Fig 10) on land that

had formerly belonged to the Cistercian abbey of Duiske

(Graiguenamanagh). Archaeological excavations at the rear of

Rothe House found evidence for the layout of the 17th-century

garden, which has been lovingly restored and was opened by

President McAleese earlier this year. The excavations also uncov

ered a well dating to the time when monks owned the property.

Kilkenny benefited greatly from the protection it received from Thomas Butler, the 10th Earl of Ormond, who succeeded

to the title in 1546 and died in 1614. An important patron of the

arts, he introduced English Renaissance building styles to the

south-east. The mansions that he constructed at Kilkenny

Castle and at Carrick-on-Suir in the 1560s provided the inspira

tion for the houses of the urban merchant class, including Rothe

Kilkenny was raised to the dignity of a city in 1609 and during the 1 640s it became the venue for the Confederation of Kilkenny

7 The Bishop's

Palace, Kilkenny

viewed from the

gardens Photo Ros

Kavanagh

8 Kilkenny Castle,

aerial view

Photographic Unit

DoEHLG

9 Bishop's Palace,

interior showing the

staircase and Serlian

window. Photo Ros

Kavanagh

10 Rothe House

Photographic Unit

DoEHLG

11 Kilkenny Castle:

The Parade,

National Library of

Ireland Poole

House, which, with its twenty-two rooms, contained one suite of

apartments for John Rothe and another for his wife, Rose

Archer. Even larger was the great house of Richard Shee on

High Street (now built over by the Market Cross shopping cen

tre), which had thirty-three rooms.

Kilkenny was raised to the dignity of a city in 1609 and dur

ing the 1640s it became the venue for the Confederation of

Kilkenny, a provisional government of Ireland established by

confederate Catholics in the aftermath of the 1641 rising and

the outbreak of Civil War in England. The Catholic resurgence

was short-lived, however, and in March 1650, after a siege last

ing one week, Kilkenny surrendered to Oliver Cromwell.

In 1654 an order was issued to clear Kilkenny, banishing its

former citizens outside the walls. Contrary to popular myth, very

few took the option of transplanting to Connacht, although it

did include one branch of the Shee family, which, in a further

challenge to stereotypical views, did well out of the transplanta

tion and was the progenitor of Martin Archer Shee (1769

1850), the celebrated portrait painter and president of the Royal

Academy (see his portrait of James Penrose on page 123). The

vacant town houses were allotted to new settlers. In the census

of c. 1659 the population of the city was enumerated at 1,311,

about one quarter of whom, 359, were New English; the real

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totals, however, when children and the

very poor are included were probably

dlose to double these figures. The city's fortunes improved with the

Restoration. James Butler was created Duke of Ormonde and he transformed

the appearance of both the castle and the

city. In 1677 he demolished the east side

of Castle Street in order to create The

Parade, a new formal approach to the cas

tle that also functioned as a piazza (Fig

11). Economic development in Kilkenny after 1700 was characterised by increased

exploitation of natural resources. The use of the Rivers Nore and

Bregagh intensified with the construction of several new mills, the introduction of new treatments for textiles and the develop

ment of a brewing industry, including Smithwicks, the best known Kilkenny brewers, who in 1827 established St Francis'

Abbey Brewery, which endures to the present. The 18th and 19th centuries also witnessed the establishment

of public institutions such as infirmaries, fever hospitals, work

houses and a gaol. The Marquess of Ormonde commissioned a

major restoration of the castle, giving it its present appearance, yet

in 1841 two-thirds of the city's housing-stock still consisted of

mud cabins. The population reached a height of 23,741 in 1831,

but it never recovered from the impact of the cholera epidemic

that killed 1,500 people within two months in the following year.

In retrospect the decline of Kilkenny in the second half of the

19th century may be traced to the failure to build a canal in the

1770s and 1780s. The loss of trade meant that there was little

local capital with which to industrialise in the early 1800s.

Nonetheless, this was to have a curious benefit. Since there was

no money to demolish old buildings and construct new ones,

Kilkenny inherited, by default, its legacy of medieval and renais

sance structures. The development of the city as a tourist centre,

however, brought its own problems. In the 1990s the construc

tion of large hotel complexes, shopping malls and high-rise car

parks, designed to service the expanding numbers of visitors,

resulted in the obliteration of much of the city's historic fabric.

Today, Kilkenny is still a charming, pedestrian-friendly city, with

delightful and unexpected views of its past splendours. Tourism will

remain cn'tical to the survival of the city and the greatest threat is

insensitive development. It is salutary to remember that more of

the historic fabric of the city has been destroyed in the past twenty

years than Cromwell's army managed to achieve. The current pro

posal to drive an 'Inner Relief Road' through the ancient city

threatens Kilkenny's whole future as a heritage destination. The

road aims to continue the line of Dean Street across the River

Nore linking up with the Castlecomer Road. At a time when

most other countries have abandoned inner relief roads, it is an

antiquated plan that will detach St Canice's Cathedral from the

remainder of the historic city. The plan also proposes the con

struction of a new bridge that will be inserted between the two

ancient bridges, forever altering the delicate spatial dialogue

between them. The linear spine of Kilkenny's main street, par

alleled by the River Nore, will be bisected. St Canice's Cathedral

JONBRDE is an archaeologit an ntive ;)of K,i lkeny

SUMMER 2008 IRISH ARTS REVIEW | 113

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