County Kilkenny · Leinster

Graiguenamanagh

Gráig na Manach

'village of the monks'

The story

The monks are the Cistercians of Duiske Abbey, founded in the 13th century, and the village is named for them and nothing else. It sits on the Barrow under Brandon Hill, and the far bank, Tinnahinch, is in Carlow, so the bridge crosses a county line as well as a river.

Worth seeing nearby
  • St Mullin’s · Moling founded this in the early 7th century and is said to have dug the mill race himself. The Book of Mulling, written here in the 8th century, carries the earliest known plan of an Irish monastery — four crosses inside the wall and eight outside.
  • Kells Priory · Three acres walled and studded with tower houses, which is why it is known locally as the Seven Castles — it looks less like a priory than a fortress. Founded about 1193, and burned three times in its first 150 years, once by Edward Bruce’s army on Palm Sunday 1316.
  • Kilkenny — the burning of Petronilla · Bishop Ledrede accused the moneylender Alice Kyteler of feeding a demon and killing four husbands. Kyteler slipped away. Her maid Petronilla de Meath, tortured into confessing, was flogged and burned on 3 November 1324 — the first such burning in Ireland, and it fell on the servant.
  • St Mullin’s — the death of Mad Sweeney · Cursed by Rónán to wander as a bird-man and to die by a spear, Suibhne ends here in Moling’s care, drinking milk from a hollow in cow dung. Moling’s herdsman, believing a rumour about him, put the spear in — and the curse was complete.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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