History of Kilkenny

The original ecclesiastical centre at St. Canice's Cathedral became known as Irishtown and the Anglo-Norman borough inside the wall came to be known as Hightown.

[10] Cill Chainnigh was a major monastic centre from at least the eighth century and the Kings of Osraige had residence there.

This was possibly on the site of an earlier residence of the Mac Gilla Pátraic (Fitzpatrick) who was in control of the Kingdom of Osraige.

In an attempt by the Gaelic clans to resist the Normans, O'Brien and Mac Gillapatrick destroyed Strongbow's fortress in 1173.

In the Late Middle Ages, 1320, the first recorded instance of a person being charged with witchcraft in Ireland was Dame Alice Kyteler, the only child of an established Hiberno-Norman family in Kilkenny.

[13] While those accused of witchcraft were not tortured and executed on a large scale until the fifteenth century, in Kilkenny, those convicted were whipped and Petronilla de Meath, Alice's maidservant, was burned alive at the stake.

After her last husband Sir John le Poer died, her children accused her of using poison and sorcery to kill him, in the hope they would gain her fortune.

The case was brought before the Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede and he found Alice and her followers rejected the Christian faith.

Outlawe was Alice's brother-in-law and he imprisoned the Bishop and Sir Arnold le Poer, the seneschal of Kilkenny.

After seventeen days in prison, the bishop was released and continued to pursue and torture Alice's maidservant Petronilla de Meath.

Her extracted confession included claims that she and her mistress applied a magical ointment to a wooden beam, which enabled both women to fly.

A celebrated account from a monastery in Cill Chainnigh (Kilkenny), by Friar John Clyn in 1348 chronicles the plague as the beginning of the extinction of humanity and the end of the world.

The pestilence gathered strength in Kilkenny during Lent, for between Christmas day and 6 March, eight Friars Preachers died.

There was scarcely a house in which only one died but commonly man and wife with their children and family going one way, namely, crossing to death.

[20] The manuscript translates from Latin as; Seated on the river Nore, which flows beneath two marble bridges distant from each other about two furlongs, its greatest length is from north to south.

From this twofold source sprang the civic community -the temple and the fortress were the nurses of its infancy – the civil and ecclesiastical polities contributing equally to the growth of its buildings.

The Local Government Act 2001 allows for the continued use of city; "the continued use of the description city in relation to Kilkenny, to the extent that that description was used before the establishment day".James II of England's pro-Catholic and Pro-France policies provoked a revolt in England and the king fled to France.

The Irish Parliament declared that James remained King and passed a massive bill of attainder against those who had rebelled against him.

[24] The Irish parliament declared the lands of Protestant supporters of William of Orange, such as James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, to be forfeit.

[26] After James's defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, his retreating army passed through Kilkenny on its way to Limerick and forced the citizens to pay protection money to save the city from looting.

[26] Kilkenny surrendered to the Williamites without firing a shot, and the propertied Old English families, who had supported James, lost everything.

[28] The Williamite army, commanded by General Godert de Ginkel, camped beside Kilkenny making the city the winter headquarters from October 1690 until May 1691 when it moved on to besiege Limerick.

[1] During the late 17th century James II had urged the Irish Parliament to pass an Act for Liberty of Conscience that granted religious freedom to all Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

In 1904, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and his wife Queen Alexandra visited Kilkenny.

In early May 1922 before the Irish Civil War there was a serious clash in Kilkenny, when anti-Treaty forces occupied the centre of the city and 200 pro-Treaty troops were sent from Dublin to disperse them.

A new stamp marking the 400th anniversary of Kilkenny's upgrade from town to city status was issued by An Post on 16 June 2009.