Mass & Service Times
We do not have service times for Kilkenny College yet. The contact details on this page are the quickest way to check. Send them to us and we will list them.
This is a chapel within a school or college rather than a parish church. Services may follow the school term — check with the chapel before travelling.
About Kilkenny College
Kilkenny College is a Church of Ireland church in Kilkenny College, County Kilkenny. It is in the Diocese of Cashel, Ferns & Ossory.
History
James, first Duke of Ormonde, established Kilkenny College in John Street in about 1666. A new college was built on the same site in the 1780s, overlooking the river Nore.
By the end of the nineteenth century the college had been reduced to a single pupil, and its own history records that amalgamation with the nearby Pococke school was its saving. It was amalgamated with the Collegiate School, Celbridge in 1973 and became co-educational. In 1985 the college moved to a new campus.
The building
The Georgian building of the 1780s on the John Street site later passed into use as the offices of the county council.
The campus the college moved to in 1985 comprises classrooms, dormitories and catering and dining facilities, set on a landscaped 50-acre site framed by mature trees. Further buildings were added after the move.
Notable features
Past pupils recorded by the college include Jonathan Swift, later Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, and the philosopher George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne and a benefactor of Yale and Harvard, who gave his name to the city of Berkeley in California. Others include the playwrights William Congreve and George Farqhuar, the novelist John Banim, David Beatty and Thomas Prior, founder of the Royal Dublin Society.
The college motto, Comme je trouve, is taken from the Butler family crest.
