Kilkenny Off The Beaten Path

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Every November Duiske Abbey in Graignamanagh hosts a series of concerts in the 800 year old Duiske Abbey in the centre of this riverside town. The concerts are held on Wednesday nights, three Classical music concerts and one Irish traditional music concert.

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Jenkinstown Wood is a small woodland park about 10 km outside Kilkenny city. It's a nice place for walking or for a picnic and very popular with the local people.

My mother grew up in nearby Jenkinstown and I have cousins who still live in the area so it's a place I have visited many times. My parents were married in the old Jenkinstown church (see picture) in 1977.

Kells is a small village 13km's south of Kilkenny.

There is not much to it (besides Kells Priory, previously mentioned), but there is a nice stone bridge and really pretty countryside.

A great place for a break and some photography!!

Kells Priory is located in the small village of Kells, 13km south of Kilkenny.

It is an ancient monastic site that dates back to the 12th Century.

Visitors are free to explore - there are no tour guides/admission charges or many people.

Just wander around and soak up the atmosphere with the sheep!

It is located 800 metres east of Kells on the Stonyford Road

Dunmore caves are off the Kilkenny-Castlecomer road, its well sign-posted, but you really could do with a car to get there.

It's 2.75 entry for an adult. You get to watch videos on the history, fauna, formation and legends of the caves before descending the stairs and crossing the yard and going down the steps into the cold, creepy but strangely compelling caves.

Parts of the cave are not open to the public.

The Black Abbey (yet another church!) is in a quiet area of town. The car-park on the right was built for the visit of President Hillary back in the 80s. They demolished a block of old town houses for that auld fellow!

A panorama of the town - not quite, this was taken on one of those grey, wet days which are quite common in Kilkenny. You can see the town in the background and the carpark of Dunnes' Stores in the foreground.

Greenshill is a residential road just on the outskirts of town. I can't even remember why i took this photo - it's on my way home and there's not much to see - in the photo you can make out the town in the distance.

........but it was always a shortcut for me getting home. Known as the canal walk, this runs from John Street up to Greens Bridge. It used to be (and perhaps still is) an area for underage drinking - i.e 13 & 14 years olds drinking flagons of cider.

Blessed Edmund Ignatius (1762)-(1844) was founder of the religious teaching order the Irish Christian Brothers. He devoted His life to looking after and educating young boys of a persecuted and exploited nation in the early 1800's. The old thatched farm house is lovingly preserved and furnished in the style of that period by the brothers themselves. Also beside his house in Westcourt, 1 mile from Callan, you can visit the Memorial Chapel which houses the Icon which forms a tabloid of his life