The above account is quoted here because it seems, to the writer, to present in a few words the conventionalities of the occasion in a frame of picturesqueness and environment which similar functions “in town” lack in almost every way.
Certainly, convention is robbed of half its banality and insincerity under such conditions, and, though most of us know it only in costume novels, sword-and-cloak dramas, and comic-opera settings, it is pleasurable to know that such things do really exist to-day.
In our day, Kilkenny Castle has been repaired, preserved, and restored, as was its due, but with that paternal care and affection which would not allow a child to be ill or inappropriately dressed. The adaptations and modernizations have not discounted its grand towers, battlements, and bastions, and though, chiefly, it is a modern building which contains the greater part of the domestic establishment of the present Marquis of Ormonde, the three massive central towers stand to-day practically unaltered as to their walls.
In every way the castle suggests Spenser’s epithet, “Faire Kilkenny.” Its picture-gallery reputedly contains the best private collection in Ireland,—portraits by Holbein, Lely, Van Dyck, Kneller, and Sir Joshua, of men who have illustrated those tragedies of history which, with time, have assumed the rich colouring of romance. Their curious watchful eyes have scanned royal guests; indeed, more than one of that now silent company have intermarried with the scions of royalty.