The news that €8 million is to be spent on developing the existing Medieval Mile Museum and parts of the Tholsel into a ‘
Horrible History Experience’ looks on the surface like a good news story for our heritage and tourism sector.
It follows the recent completion of the Mayfair Library (at a cost of €7.2 million), and the earlier commissioning of the Butler Gallery (completed in 2020, €4.5 million) and the Medieval Mile Museum itself (2017, €4.5 million).
Projects awaiting development include the proposed 260m2 Local History Hub at the old Carnegie Library, the 208m2 rehearsal space on the site of the Smithwick’s Hop Store and squash court in the Abbey Quarter, and a projected conversion of the old 10-cell gaol area under Kilkenny Courthouse (informal estimates of expenditure for these vary from €4-5 million in total based on recent building cost indications).
The combined investment has enhanced Kilkenny’s reputation not just in relation to heritage and culture, but also in regard to building conservation, since most of these projects involve the incorporation of historic buildings into the new creations.
The Mayfair Library and the proposed Local History Hub and Rehearsal Space are very obviously aimed at serving the information and leisure interests of the local population. The Butler Gallery is also an important visitor attraction and indeed part of a network of nationally-significant art exhibit locations.
The Medieval Mile Museum is part of a network that is primarily oriented towards the visitor. With Kilkenny Castle, Rothe House and St Canice’s Cathedral, it reaches out to a potential market of over three-quarters of a million people per annum, with over half-a-million of these visiting Kilkenny Castle.
The Kilkenny Destination and Experience Development Plan produced in March 2024 ranges widely across the full spectrum of visitor attractions and services. But its main concerns are focused on emerging trends such as outdoor activities, the night economy, arts and crafts traditions and county-wide networking and access. All of these play to the county’s strengths.
But while expanding the visitor footprint to cover these areas and benefit the rural economy in a sustainable way is a noble and long-term aim, it looks now as if the main thrust of tourism promotion efforts in the short term will be around the theme of city-based ‘horrible history’ and the combination of expanded Medieval Mile Museum and Tholsel facilities.
We might ask ourselves is this really the memory we want visitors to Kilkenny to take away with them — the dark, the negative, the criminal, the oppressive and the frightening aspects of the city’s history? All of these aspects are so much in contrast to the positive image that Kilkenny has spent decades in building up.
We might also lament, despite all this investment, the lack of certain high-quality locations appropriate to a city that sets itself up as a model in the areas of history, heritage and conservation.
Kilkenny still does not have a county museum, for instance — something that is now commonplace in towns and cities that do not have anything like the same profile in the heritage sector as Kilkenny does (look next door at Carlow and Waterford).
Nor does Kilkenny have a dedicated county archive facility (such for instance as near neighbour Offaly has). The brave efforts of the voluntary Kilkenny Archives Ltd are supported by St Kieran’s College, who provide the space for its collections.
Shee Almshouse, one of the few truly late medieval buildings in the city, is closed since its replacement as a tourist office. Rothe House, again a location authentic of its period, is still awaiting the major funding that would make it a truly world class attraction.
The GAA’s major role in delivering Kilkenny as a centre of sporting excellence is still largely a secret to visitors — the loss of the delightful if unviable Lory Meagher Centre in Tullaroan has never been compensated for by a proper representation of the organisation’s amazing history in both the male and female arenas.
With Kilkenny County Council’s headquarters behind John Street, The Tholsel, dominated by its dark arcade, lacks the impact it should have as Kilkenny’s most visible representation of achievements in civic history and local government over many centuries.
And we might add that as a significant player in the international arts field, and with due acknowledgement to the Watergate, SET Theatre, and the proposed rehearsal space, Kilkenny still does not have a dedicated performance venue of scale and is largely dependent on church facilities for any major orchestral or sizeable group event.
There are other issues in the mix too — whether, with 500 additional bedrooms in prospect at six new hotel locations, we are getting to visitor saturation point, as many other destinations are experiencing, and whether static museum exhibits that may merit only a single viewing can still be justified in the digital age.
I am not sure what professional inputs from historians and heritage experts are involved in the planning and working out of the ‘horrible history’ theme, but I would advise that Kilkenny be careful what it wishes for. Fifty years ago, the city decided that its very successful beer festival might be sending the wrong signals about its place in the world.
The horrible history theme it is committing itself to implementing now may become in itself a horrible history — of taking the wrong direction for the city’s long-term status and wellbeing.
Denis Bergin is a writer and editor who has been involved with Kilkenny and its heritage for many decades. He was director of the James Hoban Societies of Ireland and the USA from 2002-2022
