$6.99City HighlightsKilkenny Audio Walking Tours
Self-guided, narrated walks through Kilkenny. Buy a tour once, download it, and hear the story at each stop while you walk at your own pace.
Tours from $6.99
Friends walk free. One purchase covers everyone on your walk. Start the tour, invite your friends to join, and it plays on every phone in your group.
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Kilkenny audio tours
Each tour is a mapped route with narration at every stop. Buy it once and it is yours to keep, no subscription.
$6.99City Highlights
$7.99City HighlightsWhat to expect on a Kilkenny audio walking tour
A Kilkenny audio walk follows the Medieval Mile from a Norman castle up to a thousand-year-old round tower, then loops back along the River Nore past a brewery, a walled garden and a quiet towpath under the castle walls.
The Medieval Mile Walk starts at Kilkenny Castle and climbs High Street past the Medieval Mile Museum, Kyteler's Inn, the old inn named for a woman tried for witchcraft, and Rothe House, a merchant's home from the 1590s, 1.8 kilometers, about 26 minutes, ending at St Canice's Cathedral and its thousand-year-old round tower.
From there the route loops back down the west side of town past the Black Abbey, a Dominican priory founded in 1225, to the tall Gothic Revival spire of St Mary's Cathedral, finishing where the Medieval Mile's pubs and cafes are waiting.
The Nore Riverside Walk takes the water route instead, 2.4 kilometers, about 33 minutes, from Green's Bridge past the old Smithwick's brewery and a quiet stretch of riverbank, over John's Bridge for the classic view of the castle on its rock, through Butler House's walled garden and along the tree-lined Canal Walk beneath the castle park.
Where to walk in Kilkenny
A few of the stops you will pass, and why they are worth slowing down for.
Kilkenny Castle
Kilkenny Castle has stood above the river since the Normans built here in the 1170s, first as a timber fort and then, around 1200, as the stone castle you see today, with three of its original corner towers still standing. The Butler family lived here for more than five hundred years, and the Victorians gave it much of its current look, including the Long Gallery with its painted roof. The castle was sold to the people of Kilkenny for fifty pounds in 1967, and its park out front is free to wander even if you don't go inside. Stand in front of the gate and take in the scale of it before heading up into the medieval streets behind you.
The River Nore and the Castle Park
This is the view that explains why the Normans built here in the first place: the river curving around high ground, with the castle rising over the water on its rock, round towers and grey walls catching the last light. For centuries the Nore powered the mills that ground corn and cut the local black limestone known as Kilkenny marble, and it's still the thing that gives the town its shape. Herons and swans work the shallows, and fishermen line the banks for salmon and trout. Looking down at this scene from above, you get the whole medieval town in one frame, castle, river and the streets climbing away from the water.
The Canal Walk
The Canal Walk is a tree-lined path along the Nore, with the high walls of the castle park on one side and the river running wide and shallow over its stones on the other. It takes its name from a navigation scheme that was never finished, meant to let boats travel between Kilkenny and the tidal river downstream, and what's left is this towpath and the old stone-lined channel beside it. On a summer evening you'll meet joggers and families out walking under the trees, and on a quiet morning you might have it to yourself with only a heron for company. It's one of the gentlest stretches of the whole route, and a good one to save for last.
Get the Audio Tour in 3 Simple Steps
All in the free Walk With Me app, and the first stops of every tour are free to try.
Tap the Gold Headphones and Pick a Tour
01
Walk It Solo or Invite Someone
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Press Play and Walk
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Handcrafted for Your Time in the City
These tours aren't a checklist of sights. They're made to be walked slowly, headphones on, eyes on the city.
Meditative and Immersive
Each story is told where it happened. The app chimes when you reach a stop, one tap starts the story, and the stretch between stops is yours to take in at your own pace.
Handcrafted With Care
We choose every route and every stop ourselves and shape each story with care, so the time you have in the city goes to the places most worth seeing.
Better With Someone
Every walk is better with someone beside you, so if you can bring a friend, we really hope you do. That's why one purchase covers everyone you invite: they join your tour free.