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
Kilkenny is Ireland’s best-known medieval city and it was the second town of Leinster until the growth of Dublin’s dormitory towns in the last quarter of the 20th century. It lies on a meander of the south flowing river Nore and is at the centre of a small plain, the ancient Mag Roigne, which forms the fertile heartland of County Kilkenny. The name Cill Chainnigh, ‘Canice’s church’, provides clear evidence of the city’s origin, although the church of Canice was not the earliest Christian foundation. 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 Mór, ‘large church’, a place-name that is of 5th or 6th-century origin
