We wanted to check out another town in Ireland besides Dublin and Kilkenny caught my eye.  The train ride is about an hour and a half and it has a cool castle and some interesting churches as well as Smithwick’s brewery.  We took a tram to the train station and boarded the train right away.  You have to look above the seats to make sure someone’s name is not listed there because then it means the seat is reserved. The seats had USB ports, which was nice.  You could also choose one with a table. 

We arrived around lunch time and decided to walk straight to a fast food place called SuperMacs.  I was excited that they had grilled chicken sandwiches. The food was nice and hot and the chicken was not stringy like usual fast food places.  It was a good choice.  We bought tickets online to go to Kilkenny Castle.  In the meantime, we walked around and looked in shops and bought a few souvenirs.  

Kilkenny Castle was built in the first decade of the 13th century. It was later the home of the Butler family for over 600 years. In 1935 the family sold almost all the contents of the castle in ten days. It was presented to the people of Kilkenny in 1967 for a payment of 50 pounds. It only cost 8 euros each to tour the castle, which is pretty cheap compared to other castles we have visited. We soon found out why when touring the rooms.  

The first room is the Chinese Withdrawing Room.  It is renovated to its original 1830s decor.  The walls have original sections of hand painted Chinese wallpaper.  

The State Dining Room was the formal dining room of the castle until the 1860s, then changed into the billiard room. 

The entrance hall has Kilkenny Black Marble and sandstone floors and the table is one of the only items of furniture that the family did not sell.  Why?  It was too heavy to move. 

The grand staircase is made of mahogany. 

The Tapestry Room is in the North Tower. They were woven by Peter Paul Rubens after 1616 and depict the story of Decius Mus Roman Consul. 

The Anteroom has a nice view all the way into the drawing room.  The yellow was a bit much. 

The library has the reproduced French silk poplin on the walls of the original pattern and color from the late 19th century.  I thought it was quite ugly. 

The drawing room is decorated in the same style as the library, which is why the anteroom picture is so interesting because they are all the same color. 

The garden views from the castle were beautiful. 

The Blue Corridor used to be a gallery with over 500 paintings.  Now these walls show the history of the families. 

The Blue Bedroom is a balcony suite in the North Tower. King Edward the VII and Queen Alexandra probably stayed in this room.

The Chinese Bedroom was the last room on the upper floor that we visited.  The Moorish Staircase took us back downstairs to the Picture Gallery Wing. The ceiling is entirely hand painted and the marble fireplace is made of Carrara marble. 

The backyard of the castle had a lot of people relaxing in the grass or having a picnic. 

After leaving the castle we booked a tour at the Smithwick Brewery. We had some time to wander around town so we busied ourselves checking out some of the cathedrals and the Black Abbey.  I was shocked to discover a young child riding his scooter up and down the aisle in the Black Abbey, a place where people were actively kneeling in prayer.  

Our Smithwick tour was different from other tours we have taken at breweries.  I liked that there was a specific tour guide walking around with us, but the modern accompaniments were a little strange.  We watched a movie with a hologram of a monk in the background, we sat in a room with fake paintings that came to life and talked to us, and we looked at brewing equipment that had fake pictures of the beer brewing inside.  I did enjoy the tasting experience in which she had us try different types of barley and some yeast.  Then we purchased the sampler set of Smithwicks to taste. It was the red ale, pale ale, and cream ale (which they call Kilkenny).  The Kilkenny was my favorite, but I also enjoyed the red ale.  It had a nice flavor. The Kilkenny was similar to a Guinness, but a bit more sweet. 

We ended the afternoon with a meal at Kytelers Inn, which was established by Dam Alice de Kyteler in the 13th century. She was accused of witchcraft (after marrying, burying, and amassing a fortune from four husbands) and sentenced to burn. She managed to escape to England through good contacts.  The food came out super fast (faster than the fast food place we went for lunch), but my husband was not happy because you can’t get a burger served anything but well done in the UK and Ireland.  

The only downside to visiting Kilkenny was that we had to wait until the train arrived at 7:15pm.  There was another train in the afternoon, but we would not have had time to see the whole town.  All the stores in Kilkenny close around 5-6, so unless you are eating at that time or having a drink, there is nothing else to do in town.  The train station would not even allow people to wait outside near the tracks until 7pm.  The ride back to Dublin was packed and it was tough to find two seats together that were not already reserved, so I guess that is a way to make people reserve seats!