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This is a collection of stories of 103 ( a few extra snuck in) individuals with connections to Kilkenny and who have made Kilkenny what it is today. There are well-known names such as Alice Kyteler, the woman at the centre of Ireland's first witch-burning; James Hoban, the architect of the White House; George Berkeley -a bishop and Ireland’s best-known philosopher; and Jonathan Swift was the best-known of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
James Mason was a journalist, author and chess player who met his final check mate through his drinking problem. Michael Byrne was the blind fiddler in the crew on the Bounty who was prevented by the mutineers from leaving with Captain Bligh.
Henry Hammond, a blacksmith, made pikes for the 1798 rebellion, and was present at the Battle of New Ross. George Brown died fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, Hubert Butler spoke out against fascism and oppression across Europe, and Ellen Bischoffscheim, Countess of Desart, was the first Jewish member of the Senate.
Mary (Foley) Doyle (1837-1920) was the mother of Arthur Conan Doyle and so Cadogan jokingly calls her the ‘grandmother’ of Sherlock Holmes. Her mother, Arthur Conan Doyle’s grandmother, was Catherine (Pack) Foley from Kilkenny city.
As a young child, Mary Doyle lived on James’s Street, Kilkenny, where her mother ran a school, before leaving for Scotland as a widow in 1847. In Edinburgh, Mary Foley set up a school for governesses in Edinburgh and took in lodgers. One of those lodgers, Charles Doyle, married Mary’s daughter Mary in 1855, and they were the parents of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In sport, James Nowlan gave his name to Nowlan Park in Kilkenny. James O’Donnell 1860-1942 from Piltown, a member of New Zealand’s first international rugby team. and Mabel Esmonde Cahill was Ireland’s only Double Grand Slam tennis winner.
Billy Walsh from Walkin Street had a tough beginning in a pub on Walkin Street and surviving World War II, became one of the leading polo pony trainers in England and in 1985 before he died was presented with a bronze statuette of a polo player and pony by Queen Elizabeth II. He died in 1992 and in 2007, he was posthumously awarded a lifetime achievement award in the Audi Polo awards.
James DR McConnell, who was born on Parliament Street, was a language teacher in Eton, wrote school textbooks and wrote the authoritative history of Eton. In the 1950s, he also wrote best-selling novels. As a thriller writer, he wrote using his middle names, Douglas Rutherford, as a penname and became a household name.
Brand new and signed by the author, first published in 2017.
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