Kilkenny

A medieval city in miniature, still walkable between castle and cathedral along the Nore. The Butlers of Ormond held the castle for five hundred years. From 1642 to 1649 Kilkenny was effectively the capital of an independent Catholic Ireland: the Confederation sat here with its own parliament, mint and ambassadors from Rome, Spain and France.

Kilkenny began as a church built in honour of St Canice in the early 6th century, a major monastery by the 8th, and now St Canice's Cathedral; the name Cill Chainnigh first appears in the annals in 1085, and the seat of the diocese of Ossory moved here from Aghaboe. After the Normans came, Strongbow built a castle near the present Kilkenny Castle and William Marshal laid out the town and its walls. The old church quarter became Irishtown, the walled Norman borough Hightown.

In 1324 Kilkenny saw Ireland's earliest recorded witch trial: Dame Alice Kyteler escaped, but her servant Petronella de Meath was burned at the stake, the first person in Ireland known to have been. Kyteler's house is now a pub. The Black Death arrived in 1348, and the Statutes of Kilkenny were passed here in 1367. James I made the town a city in 1609. From 1642 it was the seat of the Confederation of Kilkenny, until Cromwell; James II wintered in the castle in 1689–90. In 1967 the Marquess of Ormonde gave Kilkenny Castle to the people of the city. It is the Marble City, and Smithwick's was first brewed here.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Kilkenny ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Kilkenny · round tower · under 1 km
• Freestone Hill · royal site · 8 km
• Lady's Well, Danesfort · holy well · 9 km
• Tullaherin · round tower · 11 km
• Saint Catherine's Well, Rathbeagh · holy well · 13 km
• Saint Lachtain's Well, Freshford · holy well · 14 km
• Maudlin Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Kilkenny Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Grace's Old Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Cantwell's Castle · castle · 5 km
• Clara Castle · castle · 6 km
• Burnchurch Castle · castle · 9 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Dunmore Cave · Where the annals say Vikings massacred a thousand people in 928. Bones of women and children were found inside in 1973 — and a Viking silver hoard in 1999.
• 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.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.