News
Boosting brain health tips for college students
BY CLAIR WHITTY What can we do to boost our brainpower, especially for students going back to college? Discover the key factors that can boost cognitive function and focus, empowering you to reach your full potential and set yourself up for success. The brain contains more than 100 billion cells working together to process information, …
Time to celebrate the lengthening of life
AS I SEE IT BY MARIANNE HERON You might think that one of the greatest achievements of the last century, a gain of 30 extra years of life, would be celebrated from the roof tops. But, instead, those extra years are more frequently perceived in negative terms, with whinges about the cost of pensions and …
All or nothing!
Relegation on the minds of many as round 5 arrives BY NIALL SHERRY, SPORTS EDITOR SPORTSEDITOR@KILKENNYOBSERVER.IE St. Canice’s Credit Union Senior Hurling League Tomorrow sees round 5 of this season’s St. Canice’s Credit Union Senior Hurling League following the ‘Electric Picnic break’. Not that any of our senior clubs would have been downing hurls and …
Country folk and the Emergency
BY JOHN FITZGERALD (Part One) Farmers kept the country “fed and watered” throughout the Emergency years (1939-45). So recalled Nell Leahy. They coped better than most urban dwellers with the wartime restrictions and shortages, she confirmed, being well used to riding bikes or pony and traps in preference to motor cars, having their own meat …
Nature-inclusive parks and open spaces key objectives under Kilkenny Biodiversity Action Plan
18 month-long consultation between statutory agencies, landowners, elected members, biodiversity specialists and communities already reaping rewards Kilkenny is leading by example with its comprehensive Kilkenny County Biodiversity Action Plan 2025-2030, committing to record, conserve and restore habitats, protect and, where possible, restore ecological corridors. The five-year Action Plan unveiled at Woodstock Gardens & Arboretum, Inistioge, …
The Black Abbey and the drama of religion over eight centuries
Photos by Ken McGuire PM O’Sullivan The Black Abbey, one of Kilkenny’s treasures, possesses a quiet magic. Fr Damian Polly, the current Prior, immediately noticed this quality on his arrival two years ago. “A lot of people get that sense of peacefulness,” he nods. “Even the tourists. They are sort of brought up short by the …
The Right Reverend Monsignor Kieron J. Kennedy
Monsignor Kieron J. Kennedy, Parish Priest of Freshford, Co. Kilkenny and Episcopal Vicar for Social and Family Affairs, died unexpectedly, but peacefully, at his residence on Tuesday, 10th June 2025, in his seventy-fifth year. THE EARLY YEARS Born in Dublin, where his father was a serving member of An Garda Síochána and where Daniel J. …
Unhappy Island to open at the Powerhouse, Callan
Saturio Alonso is exhibiting a selection of works at The Powerhouse, Callan, Co. Kilkenny. Using paper, leather and wood, Unhappy Island can be seen as a cabinet of curiosities, an eclectic collection of objects. As in an ethnographic museum, the objects in the exhibition were created raiding personal memories in what can, ironically, be defined …
Remembering Thom McGinty, the iconic Diceman
FURTHERMORE By Gerry Moran This year marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Thom McGinty, The Diceman, who died at the untimely age of 42. Thom was renowned on the streets of Dublin in the 1980s and early 1990s for his outrageous costumes and poses; he was also a regular visitor to Kilkenny when …
Digital currencies … and financial meltdowns
BY JOHN ELLIS, FINANCIAL ADVISOR From rural Tipperary to running Stripe, a $100 billion payments giant, Patrick Collison is a proud Irish success story. In March he told a US congressional committee that stablecoin, a digital currency tied to real money like the dollar or euro, could make the US dollar the top dog in …
