Kilkenny
the capital of the Irish county of that name. Near the city is the Roman Catholic college of St. Kyran .
Several Parliaments were held at Kilkenny in the 14th century, and even down to Henry VIII. it was the residence, occasionally at any rate, of the lord-lieutenant. It was here that in 1367 was passed the stringent "Statute of Kilkenny," meant to prevent the Anglo-Irish from becoming more Irish-forbidding intermarriage, etc. and here that in 1642 the Assembly of Confederate Catholics gathered. Cromwell laid siege to the city in 1648, and in 1650 it capitulated on honorable terms. The fable of the "Kilkenny cats," was a satire on the contentions of Kilkenny and Irishtown in the 17th centuries which went on till both towns were impoverished . Pop . about 10,000.