County Kilkenny
Cill Chainnigh
- IrishCill Chainnigh
- ProvinceLeinster
- County townKilkenny
- Local governmentKilkenny County Council
- Area2,071 km²
- Population104,160 (2022)
- Highest pointBrandon Hill, 515 m
The Statute of Kilkenny
In February 1366 a parliament at Kilkenny, held before Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the king's son, passed a statute about the English in Ireland.
Its complaint was that many of them had forsaken the English language, manners, mode of riding, laws and usages, and married into Irish families. So it forbade marriage, gossipred and fostering between English and Irish, and much else.
It is usually remembered as a law against the Irish. It was aimed at least as much at the English who were becoming Irish.
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Kilkenny Castle
The Butlers held the castle for almost six hundred years. In 1935 the family moved out and the contents were auctioned.
In 1967 the sixth Marquess of Ormonde handed it to a local restoration committee for £50. There are too many ruins in Ireland, he said. Charles Haughey and Mick Jagger were in the crowd when the keys were handed over that August.
The state took it over in 1969. The Office of Public Works has run it since.
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Alice Kyteler
A Kilkenny widow who married four times and did well each time. Her stepchildren believed their fathers' money had gone to her, and in 1324 they took their complaint to Richard Ledrede, the bishop of Ossory.
He charged her with sorcery and heresy. The seneschal, Arnold le Poer, a relation by marriage, had the bishop locked up for a time.
Alice fled to England and was never heard of again. Petronilla of Meath, who was accused with her, was burned alive on the second of November 1324.
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