DUISKE (GRAIGUENAMANAGH ) , was founded by William Marshal the elder, earl of Pembroke, and was colonized with monks from Stanley in Wiltshire. It is thought that the monks came to Ireland between 1202 and 1204 and first settled at Loghmere (Loughmerans) near Kilkenny, moving to Anothmolt (Annamult) and lastly to St. Saviour (Graiguenamanagh). Anothmolt was only three miles from Jerpoint and the Statutes of the Order stated that new monasteries should not be founded within twelve ‘Burgundian leagues’ of another. The site at Anothmolt was therefore illegal and inevitably led to friction with Jerpoint.

Much of the abbey was constructed with yellow limestone brought across the Irish Sea from quarries at Dundry, outside Bristol. The monastery was planned on a vast scale and the gothic church was the largest Cistercian building in Ireland. In 1228 the religious community was fixed at thirty-six monks and fifty lay-brothers; it was almost as large as Mellifont which had 50 monks and 60 lay-brothers. The abbot of Duiske sat as a peer in parliament at that time. In 1228 the abbeys of Duiske and Jerpoint entered into a long running dispute over the ownership of the dissolved monastery of Kilkenny.

In 1228 Stephen of Lexington produced a comprehensive list of criticism and instructions directed at the monastic buildings of Jerpoint and Duiske – his comments are in effect a critique of the layout of these monasteries as they existed in 1228. In 1450 the abbot complained that the abbey was threatened with ruin because James, earl of Ormond, forced the monks to pay unlawful dues and had also prosecuted them. In 1460 one of the monks accidentally killed a four yeare old boy while practicing archery in the precinct. The value of the monastery was thus similar to the smaller Cistercian monasteries of England, such as Buildwas and Croxden. The abbey was suppressed in 1536 and the last abbot, Charles O’Cavanagh, resigned his title. Following the Dissolution the property passed to the earl of Ormond and the abbey church was used as a local place of worship. In 1754 the church ruins were converted into a modern place of worship: the west end of the nave was fitted up as a Protestant church. By 1813 the local Catholic community had taken over the abbey, which now forms the parish church of Graiguenamanagh town.

ST. CANICE'S CATHEDRAL, KILKENNY. -The famous old Cathedral of St. Canice, sentinelled by its round tower, stands on an eminence in Kilkenny's "Irishtown," dates from A.D. 1180, although antiquaries claim that the existing structure is built on the site of a church established in the very earliest days of Christianity in Ireland. It is a noble ecclesiastical style, not much less in the area that St. Patrick's or Christ Church cathedral in Dublin. It is like most edifices of its kind in Ireland, of cruciform shape, two hundred and twenty-six feet from east to west. The transepts from north to south measure one hundred and twenty-three feet. Its founder was the learned and pious Bishop O'Dullany, who translated in the latter part of the 12th century, the ancient Ossorian see from Aghaboe to Kilkenny.

There are in the nave a central and two lateral aisles, which communicate by means of pointed arches. Windows of the same form illuminate the aisles, and those which light the upper portion of the nave, five in number, are of quadrefoil shape. Owing to the immensity of the original design, the cathedral remained for centuries in an unfinished state, and even now the tower is so stunted as to be almost ridiculously disproportionate to the extent of the building. It is supported on groined arches, which spring from marble columns of massive formation. In the last century Bishop Pockocke had the cathedral restored, and its simple grandeur is its chiefest charm.

ST. KIERAN'S COLLEGE, KILKENNY. -The saint whose name gives title to the college pictured above is held by some Irish savants to have preceded St. Patrick himself in his holy mission to "Green Innisfail." His chair, or throne, composed of native stone, stands in the north transept of the venerable Cathedral of St. Canice in this ancient capital of the English Pale, founded by the formidable Strongbow himself in that fateful yeare for Ireland, A. D. 1172. The Catholic College, dedicated to St. Kieran, is situated in the Clonmel Road, and is a modern sturcture of graceful Gothic design. It accommodates a large number of students, and its professors are considered among the most thorough in Ireland.

Kilkenny has always been noted as an educational centre, and has given birth to many able sons. Among the latter may be mentioned the two famous Irish novelists, John and Michael Anim, whose "Tales of O'Hara Family" won celebrity half a century ago. They justly rank with Grifin, Carleton and Lover as delineators of Irish character, and they were truly national in their sentiments. Kilkenny also gave birth to James Stephens, the Fenian chief, who came so near creating a possibly successful revolution in Ireland, in 1865. Many graduates of St. Kieran's College are priests in the United States and Canada.