Travel With Me // An Ireland Road Trip: Kilkenny, Kilkenny, Ireland

One of my favorites memories from our Europe backpacking trip is our Ireland Coast Road Trip. Our selected route started in Dublin (after spending three days there) and ended after dropping off our rental car back in Dublin.

I wrote about our first day on the road from Dublin to Kilkenny in this post. Today I’m sharing our second day of the road trip which included a full day in Kilkenny and a quick evening drive to Cork.

Kilkenny, Ireland is a really fun town. We didn’t run into many other tourists and enjoyed the slower pace from Dublin.

The castle was built in 1195 by the first Earl of Pembroke. In the 1300s, it was passed on to the powerful Butler family (from which one of the daughters married the grandfather of Anne Boleyn), and then the last member of the Butler family gave the castle to the town of Kilkenny in in 1965 for the huge sum of £50. Yes, you read that right – just £50! The State then refurbished the castle and the grounds and opened it to the public. It is now open for visitors every day of the year except for Christmas Day and the day after Christmas. During the summer you may enter on a self-guided tour, but the rest of the year, entrance is by tour only. We got tickets to a morning tour. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the beautiful rooms and paintings to share because photos were not allowed. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).