Recommendations for things to do in kilkenny?

Question

were taking my father in law to kilkenny in march, as his father,mother and previous ancestors were from there,and hes always wanted to visit. just wondered if theres any interesting things to do/places to visit in and around the city area. weve booked hire cars,so theres opportunity to have a good look around. and basically,we dont want the blokes just making it into a pub crawl, although any nice pubs or places to have a lovely meal you could highly recommend would be appreciated too. big thankyou to anyone who replies.x.

Answer 1

Kilkenny city itself is beautiful you can see the castle, walk around the park and find the dog's headstone in the Butler family graveyard, go shopping in the Design center across from the castle, go up the round tower to see the whole city, generally meander around the streets, plenty of good pubs and places to eat. Stay away from John street end of the city rule of thumb is to stay on the castle side of the river (especially on Saturday nights).

If you go to google earth people have placed lots of pictures of the city which would be nice to view before you go.

Around Kilkenny go to Bennetsbridge and go to visit Nicolas Mosses mill, go to Kells and walk around the old Priory, in Inistiguoe (where circle of friends was filmed) go to see Woodstock and walk around the grounds, Thomastown is lovely too go for lunch in Mount Juliet.

Answer 2

good answer from stevie but also add the Kilkenny Arts Centre which has different exhibitions on depending on when you come. It is the headquarters of the Arts Council of Ireland.  I particularly also recommend Inistiogue, lovely grounds of the big house and nice easy walks and nice village.  There is a great restaurant in  Kilkenny city which I will try to find the name of for you, I just can't remember it.  although it is a city it is actually quite small. However,  It is a beautiful city, enjoy and welcome to Ireland.