After a nice hot shower and the included breakfast we walked into the center of Kilkenny to visit their famous castle. Today the castle is almost fully restored to a fine presentation of a Victorian country mansion. The place was owned by the Butler family for about 900 years (though the family had various names through the period) but they abandoned the place in the 1930s and it sat and decayed until locals started an effort in the 1960s to restore it. It is a very interesting peek into how a wealthy Victorian family lived. Today the castle has only 3 of its original 4 walls standing as the 4th south wall was destroyed by Cromwell's army while he was suppressing the Irish uprising in 1650.
All in all we had a nice relaxing day in and arounnd Kilkenny