I went to Kilkenny College at a remarkable time in history. Along with my fellow scholars; William Congreve, the playwright and Bishop Berkeley, the philosopher and writer (after whom Berkeley University, California is named) we were at the centre of a lively cultural and intellectual movement in Kilkenny city which I am pleased to see is mirrored in Kilkenny today. A Jacobite plot in 1715 led to the suppression of the Mayor and the city through the Penal Laws which, until the middle of the century, stifled much activity here.
