![St canices cathedral round tower and churchyard](https://lp-cms-production.imgix.net/2019-06/GettyImages-560117025_super.jpg?fit=crop&ar=1%3A1&w=1200&auto=format&q=75)
Kilkenny City
Ireland's second-largest medieval cathedral (after St Patrick's in Dublin) has a long and fascinating history. The first monastery was built here in the…
Kilkenny City
Ireland's second-largest medieval cathedral (after St Patrick's in Dublin) has a long and fascinating history. The first monastery was built here in the…
Kilkenny City
Rising above the River Nore, Kilkenny Castle is one of Ireland's most visited heritage sites. Stronghold of the powerful Butler family, it has a history…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
This fortified Augustinian monastery is the best sort of ruin, where you can amble around whenever you like, with no tour guides, set hours or fees. Most…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
One of Ireland's most magnificent landscaped gardens, Altamont covers 16 hectares on the banks of the River Slaney. Carefully selected plantings are…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
One of Ireland’s finest Cistercian ruins, Jerpoint Abbey was established in the 12th century, with the tower and cloister dating from the late 14th or…
Kilkenny City
Dating from the early 13th century, St Mary's Church has been converted into a fascinating modern museum that charts the history of Kilkenny in medieval…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
This important monastic site, founded in the 7th century by St Moling, was the burial place of the Kings of Leinster. Its remains include four church…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Dunmore Cave is as famous for its history as for its beautiful calcite formations, and has yielded many archaeological treasures. Admission is via a…
Kilkenny City
Dating from 1594, this is Ireland's finest example of a Tudor merchant's house, complete with a restored medieval garden. Built around a series of…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
The core of Huntington Castle is a spooky, dusty old tower house built in 1625 by Sir Laurence Esmonde, now surrounded by Georgian terraces and…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
The grounds of the former Wandesforde estate, whose owners grew rich from exploitation of the land's underlying coal deposits, now form a family-oriented…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Water from Ballykeefe's 80m-deep limestone aquifer is used to make whiskey, gin, vodka and poitín at this rural distillery, whose farm grows its own…
Wexford Town
Over 9000 years of Irish history are squeezed together at this open-air museum 5.5km west of the town centre. After a short audiovisual presentation, take…
National Design & Craft Gallery
Kilkenny City
Contemporary Irish crafts are showcased at the imaginative National Design & Craft Gallery, set in former stables across the road from Kilkenny Castle,…
Wexford Town
After Henry II murdered his former ally Thomas Becket, he did penance at Selskar Abbey, founded in 1190. Basilia, the sister of Richard Fitz Gilbert de…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Jerpoint Park is a working farm on the site of a 12th-century medieval town, where 35-minute guided tours (10.30am and 2.30pm) use cutting-edge…
Wexford Town
An abandoned 20th-century shopping mall was transformed in 2018 into this innovative arts centre. Its former shops are now home to more than 25 artists,…
Kilkenny City
Until its closure, Smithwick's was Ireland’s oldest working brewery. John Smithwick founded the business in 1710 on the site of Kilkenny's 13th-century St…
Kilree Round Tower & High Cross
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Signposted across the road from the Kells Priory car park, 2.5km south of Kells, are a 29m-high round tower, an ancient church and a Celtic high cross,…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Dominated by the jackdaw-haunted ruins of a Gothic fantasy of a country house, the former seat of the Duckett family (the house burned down in 1933) was…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Thickly wooded Woodstock Gardens is a beauty of a park with huge landscaped terraces, a walled garden, an arboretum (including two 40m-tall redwoods),…
Kilkenny City
Founded in 1225 by William Marshal, this Dominican abbey takes its name from the monks' black habits. Much of what survives dates from the 18th and 19th…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
This impressive Tudor Gothic mansion, the ancestral home of the McMorrough Kavanaghs, High Kings of Leinster, was modelled in 1810–20 around the earlier…
Kilkenny City
The Butler Gallery is one of the country’s most important art galleries outside Dublin. Small exhibitions featuring the work of contemporary artists are…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Housed in an atmospheric former convent with original stained-glass windows, this thoroughly engaging museum focuses on the lives of local people through…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
These 16 interconnecting, themed gardens span the five senses – from a sculpture garden to a formal rose garden, a water and woodland garden, a willow…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Built in the 13th century on the site of a former monastery, St Mary's is ruined today but the well-preserved remains include its tower, which can be…
Visual Centre for Contemporary Art
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
British architect Terry Pawson was behind the factory-inspired industrial design of this concrete, steel-and-glass cultural centre, which is a…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
These delightful gardens are home to a heady cocktail of medicinal and kitchen herbs growing in orderly profusion; the recreated medieval monastic herb…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
At this 73-hectare farm, children can pet goats, cuddle rabbits, feed lambs, turkeys and ducks, navigate a maze (in the former barn), play crazy golf and…
Kilkenny City
These 21 hectares of public parkland extend to the southeast of Kilkenny Castle, framing a fine view of Mt Leinster, while a Celtic-cross-shaped rose…
Wexford Town
St Iberius' Church was built in 1660. The Renaissance-style frontage is worth a look, but the real treat is the Georgian interior with its finely crafted…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
The nationally renowned Jerpoint Glass Studio is housed in an old stone-walled farm building, where you can watch workers craft molten glass into…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Goatsbridge trout is sold across Ireland and beyond, and here you can visit the source. Guided one-hour tours of the fish farm show you the ponds and…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Founded in 1204, this was once Ireland's largest Cistercian abbey, and is still very much a working parish church. In the grounds stand two Celtic high…
Wexford Town
The Bull Ring is a small, open square in the city centre that gets its name from having been used as a venue for bull baiting in medieval times. These…
Kilkenny City
The beautiful Butler House gardens are home to an unusual water feature constructed from remnants of the British-built Nelson's Pillar, blown up by…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
About 3km north of Thomastown, east of the R448, is a small, ruined 13th-century church and Norman tower, signposted 50m off the road. The church contains…
Counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow & Kilkenny
Built by William Marshal on the site of an earlier Norman motte-and-bailey fort, this 13-century castle survived Cromwell's attentions. Much of the…
Kilkenny City
Kilkenny's Tholsel (City Hall) was built in 1761 on the spot where Dame Alice Kyteler’s maid Petronella was burned at the stake in 1324 for witchcraft …