Rothe House

John Rothe Fitzpiers, a Kilkenny merchant, built the first house on this plot in 1594 and added two more behind it as his family grew, connected by two cobbled courtyards - the only surviving example in Ireland of a complete merchant's townhouse complex of the period. He had twelve children. The family lost everything in the Cromwellian confiscations of the 1650s. The buildings later became a school, a shop and a Gaelic League hall, and the Kilkenny Archaeological Society has held them since 1962, running a museum and the county's genealogy service from them. Behind the third house the burgage plot - the long narrow strip of land that came with a medieval town house - has been excavated and replanted as a period garden with an orchard, herbs and vegetables of the kinds a merchant family would have grown. It is the reconstruction of a burgage plot that makes the site unusual rather than the houses alone.

What you actually see

• The three houses - built 1594 onward around two cobbled courtyards.
• The burgage plot garden - the long medieval strip excavated and replanted.
• The museum collection - Kilkenny archaeology and civic material.
• The merchant story - the Rothe family and their loss in the 1650s.

When to go

April to October for the garden, which is the strongest part; the houses are open year-round with reduced winter hours. One to two hours covers it.

Honest expectations

The interiors are sparsely furnished - the museum displays rather than a recreated home. The garden is a reconstruction based on excavation, not surviving planting. Stairs between floors are steep and narrow.

Nearby

Saint Canice's Cathedral is north; Kilkenny Castle is at the other end of the Medieval Mile.