Kilkenny Genealogy Tours
My Ireland Heritage find your Ancestors and exact house location from the 1700’s to the late 1800’s, and all available records in Ireland. We are an Irish family business dedicated to assisting you in your Irish Genealogy research for your roots and records of your family history of past generations in Kilkenny, as well as providing you with a once in a lifetime Irish Genealogy tour experience to visit your families original family house and Walk in the Footsteps of your Irish Ancestors.
Sean and the Team at My Ireland Heritage are a Government certified & approved Genealogy & Touring Company, and will personally guide you on the journey into your Irish ancestry to any County in Ireland.
Many companies are genealogy research only, many companies are touring companies only, we at My Ireland Family Heritage are proud to be able to encompass your research and tour together enabling us to work with you throughout the process to customize your tour with you and for you. To achieve a full genealogy tour experience consider adding one of our one-day historical tours.
Our Tours
Our Ancestral Townland Experience Tours
County Kilkenny is home to one of Ireland’s best-preserved medieval cities, with a long tradition of Norman and Anglo-Irish settlement layered over older Gaelic roots. This depth of history is reflected in its parish structure, which can be genuinely complex, Kilkenny has a large number of civil parishes relative to its size, and the church your family actually attended for baptisms, marriages and burials is very often not the one implied by the civil parish on their records.
We approach Kilkenny research the way we approach every county: starting from the record you have, confirming the real parish and congregation behind it, then identifying the specific graveyard your family used before locating the townland itself. Kilkenny’s rural areas, particularly around the Nore and Barrow river valleys, held strong farming communities for generations, and many families here have deep, well-documented roots stretching back centuries before emigration eventually took later generations abroad.
A Kilkenny tour can combine the medieval city itself, with its castle and narrow historic streets, with a visit to your family’s rural townland, giving you a genuine sense of both the county’s dramatic history and your own family’s quieter, personal place within it.
- Kilkenny has 10 Baronies
- Kilkenny has 141 Civil Parishes
- Kilkenny has 1574 Townlands
- Kilkenny has 23 sub townlands
Kilkenny is on the banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster. Kilkenny is a popular tourist destination. In 2009 the City of Kilkenny celebrated its 400th year since the granting of city status in 1609. Kilkenny’s heritage is evident in the town including the historic buildings such as Kilkenny Castle, St. Canice’s Cathedral and round tower.
The city is administered by a Borough Council and a Mayor. The borough’s population is 8,711, but the majority live outside the borough boundary: the 2011 Irish Census gives the total population of the Borough and Environs as 24,423.
Following Norman invasion of Ireland, Kilkenny Castle and a series of walls were built to protect the burghers of what became a Norman merchant town. William Marshall, gave Kilkenny a charter as a town in 1207. By the late thirteenth century Kilkenny was under Norman-Irish control. The Statutes of Kilkenny passed in 1366, aimed to curb the decline of the Hiberno-Norman Lordship of Ireland. In 1609 King James I of England granted Kilkenny a Royal Charter giving it the status of a city. Following the Rebellion of 1641, the Irish Catholic Confederation, was based in Kilkenny and lasted until the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. (see our Medieval Kilkenny City Tour)
Family Dynasties 1500-1600 AD
- Irish – Kearney,McCarthy
- Norman – Butler, Eustace, Rochford,Raggett,walsh
- Scottish – None
- Viking – None
County Kilkenny – Things to do and may be possible to include within your Ancestral Townland Experience Tour
- Ireland Ancient East
- Kilkenny Castle
- Smithwick’s Experience Kilkenny
- St. Canice’s Cathedral & Round Tower
- Black Abbey
- Jerpoint Abbey (Thomastown)
- Woodstock House and Gardens
- St Marys Catedral
- Kilfane Waterfall and Glen (Thomastown)
- Shee Alms House
- Capuchin Friary
Frequently Asked Questions
Kilkenny has a lot of civil parishes, does that make research more complicated?
It can, since the civil parish on a record doesn’t always match the actual church congregation. We work through this carefully to identify the real parish your family used.
Can you trace family roots along the Nore or Barrow river valleys?
Yes, these areas have well-established farming communities with good surviving records, and we regularly research families from both valleys.
Is Kilkenny city itself relevant to genealogy tours, or mainly the countryside?
Both, many tours combine the medieval city with a visit to a family’s rural townland, depending on where your specific ancestors lived.
