Ireland day 1564. Friday 09 January 2026- St Rioch

Today’s summary	Got up and left the flat at 8:30. Took trains to Kilkenny to visit St Rioch’s churchyard where Val’s great great grandparents Edward and Bridget Boulger are buried. Our second visit (first was April 2022). Found the grave which is sadly fallen and broken now and left some flowers. Met Olivia Moriarty, daughter of Tom Reade who we met last visit (now 97). She lives next door and looks after the churchyard. Had late lunch in the castle café and caught a (noisy) train back. In the flat again by 6:30pm and had fish fingers for dinner.
Today’s weather	Clear dry and bright with long sunny periods. Light westerly wind. Appx 3c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): St Riochs Kilkenny

Commentary

Val’s Irish heritage (on her mother’s side) originates from the town of Kilkenny. It’s a midsize town, quite smart and with a river and castle, about 150km / 90mi south west of Dublin. We first visited in April 2022 and managed to locate the churchyard where her great great grandparents Edward and Bridget Boulger are buried. Val had always wanted to return and lay some flowers on their grave. That was our plan for today.

Last time when we visited Kilkenny in April 2022, we were fortunate enough to find the relevant churchyard – at St Rioch’s off Walkin Street. We were also lucky to meet Tom Reade, who tends to the graves and was on-site when we dropped by. We were particularly fortunate because the grave we sought was fallen, broken, and had a piece missing so it would have been very hard to locate. But Tom knew where it was and was able to guide us. And in a further stroke of luck, we found on the web a 1982 survey by Kilkenny Archaeological Society which had recorded the full inscription on the grave before the critical piece went missing So we were able to confirm that the remaining pieces were indeed from the Boulgers’ headstone.

Tom no longer tends to the graves (he’s 97!) but his daughter, Olivia Moriarty, lives in the house next door and keeps an eye on the plots. Val managed to establish contact with her (another bit of detective work by the super-sleuth) and arranged for the graveyard gates to be unlocked in time for our visit.

So to set the ball rolling today, we travelled down to Kilkenny by train – I have a free travel pass to use, after all – which was relatively painless though the trains from and to Heuston to and from Kilkenny were crowded and noisy. Luckily I was able to reserve seats for the return journey, otherwise we would have had to stand.

We left the flat at about 8:30am and were at the churchyard about four hours later. The gate was open, as arranged. So we sought the grave and quickly located it. We were able to reassemble the remaining fragments of the headstone and found that by aligning them with low-level sunlight, the inscription stood out and we were able to read it quite clearly.

Val laid the flowers, and then we left after having paid our respects. We called in to see Olivia, next door, and had a chat about the graveyard and about her family. Then once we had finished the spiritual business we turned to the temporal and set about finding some lunch.

There’s an impressive castle in Kilkenny – run by the OPW and set above a wide bend in the river Nore. We’d been round it last time we were in Kilkenny but went back again today in search of a tea shop. It turned out that it did indeed have a café – quite a nice one, as it happens, located in the castle’s former kitchens. The only downside was we had to pay €6 each to get in to the castle and to access it. Still, we thought, we would have a quick lunch and then look round the castle afterwards.

It didn’t quite work out that way though. The lunch was good (soup and sausage rolls) and the ambience was congenial, so we spent a long time dining and then by the time we had finished, we needed to set off to catch the 1533 train back to Dublin.

The return journey was straightforward and we were back in the flat at about 6:30 pm. A ten hour door to door round trip. We finished off the day with fish fingers for dinner and then a video call with family in Canada and a phone call with a friend in the Walking Club.

Eventually, we retired to bed – a full-on day but very well worthwhile and actually quite uplifting.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The remaining visible parts of the grave – with the inscription only visible when the sun is shining on the headstone from a shallow angle – as fortunately happened today	The full text of the headstone on plot 39, as recorded by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1982

Kilkenny castle	Tea for two (actually the pot was large enough for twenty)

Enjoying the sun!	Brewery and pub on the east bank of the Nore river, just over John’s Bridge

Val managed to find some beautiful hyacinths and skimmia at the florist’s in Malahide last night. They looked just perfect on the grave.