Kilkenny Castle ( ) is a castle in Kilkenny, Ireland, built in 1260 to control a fording-point of the River Nore and the junction of several routeways. It was a symbol of Norman occupation, and in its original 13th-century condition, it would have formed an important element of the town's defences with four large circular corner towers and a massive ditch, part of which can still be seen today on the Parade.

In 1967, Arthur Butler, 6th Marquess of Ormonde, sold the castle for £50 to the Castle Restoration Committee for the people of Kilkenny. The castle and grounds are now managed by the Office of Public Works, and the gardens and parkland are open to the public. The Parade Tower is a conference venue. Since 2002, ceremonies for conferring awards and degrees on the graduates of the Kilkenny Campus of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, have been held at the castle.

History

thumb|left|alt=Kilkenny Castle - Main Gate - July 2024|Main gate, July 2024

thumb|left|upright|Auction Catalogue, 1935

thumb|right|Kilkenny Castle

thumb|right|Interior courtyard

thumb|right|The castle seen from the nearby [[River Nore]]

Early history

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, commonly known as Strongbow constructed the first castle, probably a wooden structure, in the 12th century. The Anglo-Normans had established a castle in 1173, possibly on the site of an earlier residence of the Mac Giolla Phádraig kings of Osraighe. Kilkenny formed part of the lordship of Leinster, which was granted to Strongbow. Strongbow's daughter and heiress, Isabel married William Marshall in 1189.

Marshall owned large estates in Ireland, England, Wales and France and managed them effectively. In 1192, he appointed Geoffrey FitzRobert as seneschal of Leinster and so began a major phase of development in Kilkenny, including the development of Kilkenny Castle.

The castle was owned by the seneschal of Kilkenny Sir Gilbert De Bohun who inherited the county of Kilkenny and castle from his mother in 1270, in 1300 he was outlawed by Edward I but was reinstated in 1303, he held the castle until his death in 1381. It was not granted to his heir Joan, but seized by the crown and sold to the Butler family in 1391.

Among the many notable members of the Butler family was Lady Margaret Butler (c. 1454 or 1465–1539) the Irish noblewoman, the daughter of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond. Lady Margaret Butler was born in Kilkenny Castle. She married Sir William Boleyn and was the paternal grandmother of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England.

Confederate Ireland

In the 17th century, the castle came into the hands of Elizabeth Preston, wife of then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond. Butler, unlike most of his family, was a Protestant and throughout the Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s was the representative of Charles I in Ireland. However, his castle became the capital of a Catholic rebel movement, Confederate Ireland, whose parliament or "Supreme Council" met in Kilkenny Castle from 1642 to 1648. Ormonde himself was based in Dublin at this time. The east wall and the northeast tower of the Castle were damaged in 1650 during the siege of Kilkenny by Oliver Cromwell during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. They were later torn down. Then, in 1661, Butler remodelled the castle as a "modern" château after his return from exile.

thumb|1832, [[Dublin Penny Journal]]

By the 18th century, the castle had become run down, reflecting the failing fortunes of the Butler family. However, some restoration was carried out by Anne Wandesford of Castlecomer, who brought wealth back into the family upon marrying John Butler, 17th Earl of Ormonde. In the 19th century, the Butlers then attempted to restore it to its original medieval appearance, also rebuilding the north wing and extending the south curtain wall. More extensions were added in 1854. In 1904, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and his wife Queen Alexandra visited Kilkenny Castle.

thumb|right|View from the river, 1841 by [[William Henry Bartlett]]

thumb|right|The same view between 1890 and 1900

The castle in the 20th century

The family disposed of the bulk of their tenanted estates in Tipperary and Kilkenny, 21,000 acres (85&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) in the early 1900s. Although the nominal value of the income from the Ormonde Settled Estates in Ireland was approximately £44,000 in the 1880s and 1890s, regular rental arrears caused by the ongoing agricultural depression rendered the actual income as closer to £22,000 annually during the later decades of the nineteenth century; records survive of Lady Ormonde startling a guest seated next to her at Castle Ball by commenting that "we are very poor."

The Ormonde landed Estates, which had spanned some 27,800 acres in the counties of Tipperary and Kilkenny in the 1880s, were sold in 1903 for £240,000 under the Wyndham Land Act. The family's Irish landholdings was thereafter reduced to the 95-acre demesne of Kilkenny Castle, approximately 700 acres at the Dunmore home farm, and some 3,500 acres of mountain forest (largely used for shooting and forestry) at the family's hunting Lodge at Ballyknockane, Tipperary.

The 1911 census of Ireland records that seventeen servants resided at the Castle as part of Lord Ormonde and Lady Ormonde's household, including a valet, two footmen, a chauffeur, assistant lodge keeper, housekeeper, cook, lady's maid, four housemaids, a still room maid, scullery maid, kitchen maid, and two dairy maids. Additional servants were housed in adjacent properties at No's 8 - 11 The Parade, Kilkenny, including a butler, groom, land agent, laundress and two laundry maids.

James Butler, 3rd Marquess of Ormonde, died in 1919. Death duties and expenses following his death amounted to £166,000.

In 1922, during the Irish Civil War, Republicans were besieged in the Castle by Irish Free State forces. The Ormondes, together with their pet Pekinese, chose to remain in situ in their bedroom over the great gate, which was the main focus of attack. There was a machine gun outside their door. Only one man was injured but a great deal of damage was inflicted on the castle, which took many years to repair.

George Butler, Earl of Ossory and his family remained living in the castle until 1935, The impact of rising taxes, death duties, economic depression and living costs had taken their toll. While the Ormondes had received £22,000 in rental income in the 1880s, investment income in the 1930s was in the region of £9,000 and by 1950 these investments yielded only £850. a still thriving organisation that connects, preserves and unites a family once dominant in the British Isles. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull turned up at the castle hand over party, with Jagger telling the newspapers "We just came to loon about." It now belongs to the people of Kilkenny.

Restoration

The rest of the 20th century saw a large amount of restoration and maintenance take place, as well as the castle being opened to visitors.

thumb|alt=PictureGallery - July 2024|Picture gallery

thumb|alt=Kilkenny Castle - Drawing room - July 2024|Drawing room

thumb|alt=Kilkenny Castle Formal Rose Garden|Formal rose garden

thumb|alt=Kilkenny Castle - Main Courtyard and Castle Park|Main courtyard and castle park

The Butler Gallery, previously based in the basement of Kilkenny Castle, is located in the redeveloped Evans' Home, a former almshouse built in the 19th century for impoverished domestic servants. It holds rotating exhibitions put on by the Kilkenny Art Gallery Society in a venue named for Peggy and Hubert Butler.

Excavations

Excavations and building surveys by Ben Murtagh in the 1990s revealed traces of an earlier castle, exposed a postern gate (side entrance) and section of the castle ditch facing on to the Parade (now visible), and also partly uncovered the lost south-east side of the castle. The entrance was through the (now missing) east wall. Various other features of the original castle have also been excavated, including original stone buttressing and a garderobe. Excavations in 2019 by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil uncovered the foundations of the great gatehouse, built by William Marshal in the early 1200s.

Weather record

Ireland's highest officially recognised air temperature, , was measured at Kilkenny Castle on 26 June 1887.

References

Bibliography

  • Fenlon, Jane, The Ormonde Picture Collection. Dublin, Dúchas/Heritage Service, 2001
  • Murdoch, Tessa (ed.) (2022). Great Irish Households: Inventories from the Long Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: John Adamson, pp.&nbsp;31–53
  • Kilkenny Castle: Official website
  • Kilkenny famous landmarks