8th August
Erik Friedlander & FLM Ensemble
Set Theatre
Celebrated virtuoso cellist Erik Friedlander explores the cutting edge of jazz and classical music in the company of Irish trio FLM Ensemble.

Mick Flannery with Morton Valence & Catherine Dowling
St Canice’s Cathedral
Mick Flannery burst onto the rock scene with White Lies and now he brings his heartfelt songs and full-throated delivery to St Canice's Cathedral, accompanied by the sultry Catherine Dowling and the indefinable Morton Valence.

Façade: an entertainment for reciter and six instruments
Set Theatre
Critically-acclaimed Irish actor Barry McGovern joins Ensemble Nouveau for Façade, a reading of Edith Sitwell’s quirky, witty poems accompanied by William Walton’s playful music.

Thomas Dunford
The Parade Tower
Virtuoso lutenist Thomas Dunford plays pieces by the great French composers from the era of the Sun King.

The Gingerbread Man
The Parade Tower
In this delightful rendition of the age-old tale, Miriam Lambert bakes the gingerbread, but the freshly-baked biscuit runs, eluding everyone’s hungry grasp, until he meets a very clever fox…

Michael Buckley’s Dublin Standard Time
Set Theatre
Led by Ireland’s finest saxophonist, Michael Buckley, Dublin Standard Time brings a full-blooded, old-school approach to the great jazz songs of the last century.

John Boyne & Andrew O’Hagan
The Watergate Theatre
John Boyne, best-selling author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and Andrew O’Hagan, one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, take us on a fictional journey from revolutionary Russia to Marilyn Monroe’s bedroom.

Public Seminar: The Future of Music Distribution & Promotion (chaired by Matthew Nolan)
Kilkenny County Council Arts Office
An open discussion challenging conventional thinking about the business of music, and exploring new ways of creating, promoting, and distributing it.

Visual Art Strand 2: Endangered Studios
An exhibition of work by four Kilkenny-based artists.
![]()
Visual Art Strand 2: Tony O’Malley
Butler Gallery
The first exhibition dedicated entirely to the amazing ‘Constructions’ of the renowned Irish artist, Tony O’Malley.
![]()
Strand 2 Craft: Made in Kilkenny
Twenty-six of the finest craftspeople in Kilkenny display work inspired by the county.
![]()
Strand 2 Craft: Grennan Mill Craft School Exhibition
Grennan Mill Craft School presents an exciting range of work from six artists.
![]()
Strand 2 Craft: Ceramics Ireland International Festival
The National Craft Gallery
Featuring outstanding work from seven international makers.
![]()
Embracing Technology
The National Craft Gallery
Showcasing the work of fourteen makers who are pushing the boundaries of their craft through the inventive use of materials and technology.
![]()
Mah Rana - ‘Jewellery is Life’ and ‘Meanings and Attachments’
The National Craft Gallery
Two exhibitions exploring the idea that jewellery is intrinsic to our lives.
![]()
The Magic Cube
The Watergate Theatre
Two clowns discover a strange world made only of cubes in this wonderful clowning performance featuring horses, motorbikes, trains, castles, battles, love, laughs and even some tears.

Where did it all go right?
The Left Bank
ponydance, Belfast’s champions of comedy dance theatre, serve up an outrageous confection of moves and movement to a soundtrack of garish music and nervous tension. You’ll laugh and cringe!

The Smile Off Your Face
Rothe House
The Smile Off Your Face offers a totally unique experience, for one person at a time. Everything happens only in your head, and yet it doesn’t…

Victor and Gord
Cleere’s
You know those friends you grew up with? Went to school with? Laughed, cried, partied and pulled with? D’you ever wonder, sometimes, if they’d ever just f**k off?

Visual Art Strand 2: KCAT Thirteen
A vibrant exhibition featuring work by thirteen local artists.
![]()
Visual Art Strand 2: Maria Van Kesteren
An exhibition of new work by the artist who introduced woodturning to Ireland.
![]()
Visual Art Strand 2: Gerard Casey, Eamon Colman, Patrick Pye
Featuring graphic work and paintings by three of Ireland's foremost artists.
![]()
Visual Art Strand 2: Guerrilla Girls
Kilkenny County Council Arts Office
New works by internationally-renowned feminist arts group the Guerrilla Girls.
![]()
Willie Doherty
Rothe House
Twice Turner Prize nominee Willie Doherty's photography and video work draws on his native city of Derry to explore themes of individual and collective subjectivity, memory and responsibility.
![]()
William McKeown
11 Patrick Street
"The paintings that I will be showing at Kilkenny have developed out of the theme of immersion that has preoccupied me for many years."
![]()
Eithne Jordan
11 Patrick Street
Eithne Jordan, one of Ireland’s leading figurative painters, explores the hidden and forgotten spaces of Europe's great cities.
![]()
Declan Clarke
Rothe House
Declan Clarke's Cologne Overnight considers the development of 20th century Western ideals through the ruins left in their wake.
![]()
Michael Coleman
11 Patrick Street
"Around the Park is a series of twelve watercolours based on my time as an artist-in-residence in the Phoenix Park, Dublin."
![]()
Stephen Loughman
11 Patrick Street
Stephen Loughman's series The Fisherman’s Widow investigates the notion of an artwork as witness to a crime.
![]()
Ciarán Walsh
Rothe House
Ciarán Walsh’s recent work investigates the legacy of maligned psychotherapist and scientist Wilhelm Reich.
![]()
Eoghan McTigue
Kitchen Corridor - Kilkenny Castle
The photographs in Eoghan McTigue's series Aerial Plane have a strange, otherworldly feel, like dark, monochromatic paintings.
![]()
Dennis McNulty
Ormonde St. Car Park (Top Floor)
Dennis McNulty creates ‘situations’, space-specific sound performances or site-related installations, which he characterises as points of intersection between flows of various kinds – time, site, sound, narrative and audience.
![]()
Fergus Martin
11 Patrick Street
"In my painting and sculpture, I try to find a shape that gives a feeling of ‘holding’ as much as possible. I often think of tanks filling up with water, of rivers rising to the brim."
![]()
Susan Phillipsz
Kilkenny Castle Park
Turner Prize nominee Susan Philipsz's sound installation in Kilkenny Castle Park pays tribute to Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce and a passionate (but now forgotten) dancer.
![]()






































We're Social