Two Judaica prints are reminders of Kilkenny’s great Jewish senator

Two Judaica prints, one Sephardic and one Ashkenazic … a surprising find in a shop window in High Street, Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Walking along High Street in Kilkenny, my eye was immediately caught by two items of Judaica in the window of the Oxfam shop.

These were high-quality prints or reproductions of pages from the Barcelona Hagadah in the British Library in London and ‘Kennicott 3,’ a rare example in the Bodleian Library in Oxford of a lavishly illustrated 13th century Ashkenazi Pentateuch, first collected by Benjamin Kennicott.

The second stage of this late summer ‘Road Trip’ had brought two of us from Clonmel to Kilkenny, and we were staying in the River Court Hotel, with views of Kilkenny Castle sitting high on the banks of the River Nore.

Both items struck me for their beauty, but also because there has never been a continuous Jewish presence in Kilkenny and yet Kilkenny has been the home of Ireland’s most famous Jewish woman politician and public figure.

The Hagadah is used in Jewish homes on Passover eve to commemorate the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The text is a mosaic of biblical passages, blessings, legends and rituals arranged into a 14-step sequence. The Hagadah teaches young people about the continuity of the Jewish people and faith in God.

The Barcelona Hagadah was produced in Barcelona in the 14th century. The text is written in a neat square vocalised Sephardi script. As well as the Hagadah text, the manuscript contains the Laws of Passover, liturgical poems and Torah readings for the Passover festival according to the Sephardi custom, and poems and other readings according to the Provencal rite.

Unlike other Spanish mediaeval Passover Hagadot, the Barcelona Hagadah lacks the characteristic cycle of full-page biblical miniatures that normally precede the main text. In contrast, many of its folios abound in glorious illustrations depicting Passover rituals, biblical and midrashic episodes and symbolic foods. No fewer than 64 of its 161 folios are ornamented.

The tooled Gothic word panels are particularly stunning, as are the marginal lush foliage scrolls interwoven with human figures, birds, hybrids, grotesque and fabulous animals.

Nothing is known about the makers of this codex. But several inscriptions in the manuscript help to identify some of its past owners. It was sold by Shalom Latif of Jerusalem to Rabbi Moses ben Abraham of Bologna in 1459 for 50 gold ducats, showing it had left Spain prior to the expulsion of Jews expulsion in 1492.

It was owned in the 17th century by Jehiel Nahman Foà, a collector of manuscripts and books, and later by Mordecai and Raphael Hayyim, two members of the Ottolenghi family, a prominent Jewish Italian family. The British Museum bought the Barcelona Hagadah in 1844.

On the other hand, ‘Kennicott 3’ is a rare example of a dated and lavishly illustrated Ashkenazi Pentateuch with the Five Scrolls and additional readings from the Prophets.

Its origins are still unclear, with possibilities ranging from northern France to Krinau in north-east Switzerland. But it is noted for the quality and imaginative power of its illuminations, and the coherent arrangement of the various components of text on the pages.

The Carnegie Library on John’s Quay … one of the philanthropic projects in Kilkenny sponsored by Lady Desart (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Kilkenny’s most famous Jewish politician and public figure was also one of the city’s great benefactors at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Ellen Odette Cuffe (1857-1933), Countess of Desart, was the widow of William Ulick O’Connor Cuffe (1845-1898), 4th Earl of Desart. She was born Ellen Odette Bischoffsheim in London, and became a philanthropist and politician, as well as President of the Gaelic League. She could be described as the most important Jewish woman in Irish history.

Lady Desart was a daughter of Henri Louis Bischoffsheim (1829-1908), a wealthy Jewish banker of German origin. He was responsible for founding three of the largest banks in the world: the Deutsche Bank, Paribas Bank, and Societe Generale. She married William Cuffe (1845-1898), 4th Earl of Desart, in Christ Church in Down Street, Mayfair, on 29 April 1881.

The Bischoffsheim family originally came from the Rhineland. In 1827 Jonathan-Raphael Bischoffsheim married Henriete Goldschmidt and co-founded the bank of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt. When Henri Louis Bischoffsheim took over the family bank in the late 1860s, he was said to be one of the wealthiest men in Germany. In 1856, he married Clarissa Biedermann, whose father had been court jeweller to the Hapsburgs in Vienna. The head office of Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt later moved to London.

For much of their life, Lady Desart and her husband lived at Desart Court, between Kilkenny and Callan. The Carnegie Library on John’s Quay is one of the many philanthropic projects in Kilkenny she sponsored with or in memory of her brother-in-law, Captain Otway Frederick Seymour Cuffe (1853-1912), a former Mayor of Kilkenny. Her other projects included Aut Even Hospital (1915) and the Desart Hall in Kilkenny. She also established local woodworking and woollen industries.

This Carnegie Library, a distinctive landmark by the banks of the River Nore in Kilkenny, opened in 1910. It was built through sponsorship from Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), was designed prepared by the Tyars and Jago practice in association with E Stewart-Lowrey and Son, and stands on a site donated by Lady Desart.

It is a detached, three-bay, single-storey classical-style building, with an elegant bowed Doric portico at the centre, single-bay, single-storey, gabled flanking end bays, and four-bay, single-storey side elevations. The classical theme of the composition is enhanced by finely-detailed dressings to the window openings, and an open work steel turret on an octagonal plan with a copper-clad square-profiled base and a lead-lined ogee dome.

In a cost-effective measure that appealed to Carnegie’s frugal agent, James Bertram (1872-1934), the library was built almost entirely in fine concrete block, imitating local Kilkenny limestone. This was an early use of concrete block in the Kilkenny area.

The site was bought for £600 by Lady Desart, who also paid for the furniture. The foundation stone was laid in 1908. The library was handed over to Kilkenny Corporation in 1910 and was opened on 3 November by Lady Desart. Later that day, she was conferred with the Freedom of the City. Until 1972, this remained the only purpose-built facility offering a range of library services in Co Kilkenny.

The Lady Desart Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge opened in 2014 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Lady Desart was appointed to the Irish Free State Senate as an independent Senator in December 1922. She was one of the four women in the new Senate and she was the first Jew to serve as a Senator in Ireland.

She remained a senator until she died at Waterloo Road, Dublin, on 23 June 1933. In her will, she left £1.5 million to the charities she was associated with.

Beside the library, Lady Desart is commemorated by the Lady Desart Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge, which opened on 30 January 2014.

Lady Desart’s younger sister, Amélie Bischoffsheim (1858-1947), married Sir Maurice FitzGerald (1844-1916), 20th Knight of Kerry. When her father died, Amelia inherited Bute House in London, which she sold to the Egyptian government in 1927 – it is now the Egyptian Embassy.

And Lady Desart’s sister closed a circle on this summer’s ‘Road Trip,’ for Sir Maurice FitzGerald was the last of the Knights of Kerry to live on Valentia Island, one of the first stops on this two-week journey, and I had visited his grave in the churchyard at the ruined Saint John’s Church at Kilmore, outside Knightstown, early last week.

Kilkenny Castle and the River Nore seen from the Lady Desart Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Ballyragget Castle, a ‘sleeping giant’ with hidden potential

Ballyragget Castle, once the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler dynasty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Ballyragget Castle stands beside the village, close to the SuperValu supermarket, and just 100 metres from the banks of the River Nore. It is a ruined square tower house, with a defensive wall with corner towers, but it once provided excellent views of river traffic and the surrounding countryside and was strategically important for the Ormond Butlers along the northern lines of defence of Kilkenny Castle.

Ballyragget is about 18 km from Kilkenny, on the N77 road to Durrow, and two of us stopped to see the castle and parish church late last week on our way from Kilkenny to Askeaton.

Ballyragget is said to take its name from Richard le Ragget, a local Anglo-Norman leader who owned the land in the 13th century.

However, the castle is of a much later date. Popular stories in the area say it was built about 1485 by Lady Margaret FitzGerald, who that year married Pierce ‘Ruadh’ Butler (1467-1539), 8th Earl of Ormond.

A stone bench at the top of the castle is called ‘Lady Margaret’s Chair’ and is also known as the ‘Wishing Chair.’ The older people in Ballyragget said that if you sat in the chair your wish would be granted.

Enda Houlihan, in his BEd thesis, ‘Ballyragget Castle, Co Kilkenny, a history and comparative analysis,’ argues that this tower house was not an addition to an earlier castle but is an original construction from the late 15th century when it became important strategically because of the prevailing, fragile political situation between the Earls of Kildare and Piers Ruadh Butler, whose wife was a daughter of Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare.

Lady Margaret is said to have made Ballyragget Castle her favourite residence, and one account says ‘she often indulged in the turbulent and freebooting practices more suitable to an unprincipled Amazon than to a lady and often issued from the castle, at the head of her retainers, and plundered the cattle and other property of neighbouring families whom she was pleased to view as not belonging to the circle of her friends.’

The second son of Piers Ruadh and Margaret, Richard Butler (1550-1571), was the Keeper of the Castle of Ferns, Co Wexford, and became the 1st Viscount Mountgarret in 1550.

He inherited Ballyragget Castle, and for more than two centuries this castle was the principal residence of the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family.

A secret orchard seen through a breach in a wall in the grounds of Ballygarret Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Ballyragget Castle is basically 44 ft by 31 ft in size, according to Canon William Carrigan’s history of the Diocese of Ossory. The walls are about 7.5 ft thick and all the doors are of cut stone, probably limestone.

This five-storey castle consists of a large tower-house complete with crenellations and surrounded by a substantial bawn. It once had handsome cut stone windows, the four round towers that defend it are looped in order to command the surrounding lands, a look-out turret rises above the parapet in the north-east corner of the keep.

The fine arched entrance in the west wall is now blocked up but was protected by a machicolation. There is a machicolation in the middle of the south wall and the south-west corner tower was turned into a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The flanker at the south-east corner has a squinch containing a latrine chute. Local people say a dungeon stretches from the castle to the river.

According to Enda Houlihan, Ballyragget Castle ‘was a formidable and imposing structure, militarily and politically.’ From the 16th century on, Ballyragget Castle gained in military importance and in prestige, and it was the main defensive structure and fortified keep north of Kilkenny Castle.

An urban centre grew up around the walled fortifications. This became a prosperous town and gave the Butlers a military presence in an area previously unmarshalled. In this way, the castle and the people who lived in and around it were firmly tied to the shire of Kilkenny.

The castle became the seat of the Mountgarret branch of the Butlers of Ormonde, who used it as a defence and to raid the adjoining territory of the MacGiollapadraig or FitzPatrick family.

Richard Butler (1550-1571), 1st Viscount Mountgarret, was succeeded in 1571 by his eldest son, Edmund Butler (1562-1602), 2nd Viscount Mountgarret, who also inherited Ballyragget Castle He remodelled the state room, which was fitted with a massive cut-stone chimney piece, inscribed with his initials and the date: ‘EM 1591.’

But the castle also became the base for revolt in the late 16th century when Edmund Butler’s sons revolted against the crown and supported the Ulster rebels. Ballyragget was attacked and captured on three separate occasions, and Sir George Carew garrisoned the castle in 1600 against the Mountgarrets.

Edmund’s fifth daughter, the Hon Eleanor Butler, married Morgan (Murrough) Mac Bryan Kavanagh, of Borris, Co Carlow, and their daughter Grany (Graine) married John Comerford of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny.

Edmund’s eldest son and successor, Richard Butler (1578-1651), 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, married Lady Margaret O’Neill, daughter of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

A blocked up window in Ballyragget Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Ballyragget Castle seems to have been abandoned, at least temporarily, by the Mountgarrett Butlers in the early 17th century. But the third viscount returned to Ballyragget Castle, and King James I granted him a charter in 1619, making Ballyragget a manor, with two annual fairs.

Edmund Mountgarret was the President of the Confederation of Kilkenny (1642-1648). After his death, Colonel Daniel Axtell held the castle during the Cromwellian era. Local lore says Axtell had one of the Butlers of the castle tortured and killed for not disclosing where the Mountgarret treasure was buried, and that he hung Catholic and Protestant royalists on the Fair Green in Ballyragget while laughing on from the castle.

Edmund Butler (1595-1679), 4th Lord Mountgarret, was restored to his lands after the Caroline Restoration in 1660. Bishop Carrigan noted that two sets of corbels in the same wall as the east entrance and other marks on the wall indicate a very large house or mansion was built against it but has since been demolished.

The Battle of Ballyragget took place in the shadow of the castle in 1775, involving the largest ever assembly of Whiteboys in Kilkenny, including 300 horsemen and 200 on foot.

However, the Mountgarret branch of the Butler family continued to live in the castle until 1788, when Edmund Butler (1745-1793), 11th Viscount Mountgarret, moved to Ballyragget Hall, a house close by. His son, Edmund Butler (1771-1846), 12th Viscount Mountgarret, later became Earl of Kilkenny.

The present owners of Ballyragget Castle have planted beautiful alder trees along the avenue leading up to the castle which is just about visible if one peeks through the corrugated iron gates.

The castle is a listed building in the 2014 County Development Plan, but it is not a national monument. The castle is blocked up, stands on private land beside a farmyard and is not open to the public, and entrance to the bawn is not permitted. However, the heavy metal gate was open when two of us arrived early on Friday afternoon, and we had a brief and rare opportunity to photograph the castle and walk around the bawn.

With imagination and the right grants, Ballyragget Castle could easily be put to good use become a tourist attraction. But the castle remains a sleeping giant, an untapped resource full of potential.

Ballyragget Castle could be put to good use, but remains a sleeping giant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Former Kilkenny College building is an elegant presence on River Nore

Kilkenny County Hall, the former premises of Kilkenny College, seen from the banks of the River Nor, below Kilkenny College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As I made my way along John Street in Kilkenny a few times this week, I passed Kilkenny County Hall, now the principal offices of Kilkenny County Council, but for over 300 years the site of Kilkenny College, one of the oldest secondary schools in Ireland.

What was once the main school building at Kilkenny College is a seven-bay, three-storey classical-style building, built in 1782 on the site of the earlier college, built in 1667.

Despite the dates 1667 and 1782 given for this building, the origins of Kilkenny College date back to the College of Vicars Choral established at Saint Canice’s Cathedral in 1234. In 1538, Piers Butler (1487-1539), 8th Earl of Ormonde, and his wife, Lady Margaret FitzGerald, founded a school to the west of the cathedral, where the library now stands. Both Piers and Elizabeth are buried in a fine tomb in the cathedral.

The Library, to the West of Saint Canice’s Cathedral, stands on an earlier site of Kilkenny College, provided by Piers Butler, Earl of Ormonde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Kilkenny College was closed for a period in the 1650s during the Cromwellian era.

When James Butler (1610-1688), 1st Duke of Ormonde, re-established Kilkenny College in John Street, around 1666, he was following the Butler tradition of promoting education in the city. At one time in the late 17th century, the college received a royal charter from James II and had aspirations to become a university.

Kilkenny College became a famous school, and in the 1780s a new college was built on the same site, overlooking the River Nore.

Yet, numbers had fallen to one pupil at one time in the 19th century, and an amalgamation with the nearby Pococke school roved to be a life-saver. More recently, Kilkenny College was amalgamated with the Collegiate School, Celbridge, in 1973, and it became co-educational.

The best-known past pupils must be Jonathan Swift (1668-1745), author of Gulliver’s Travels, satirist and Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, and George Berkeley (1685-1753), philosopher, Bishop of Cloyne, and benefactor of Yale and Harvard, who gave his name to Berkeley in California.

Other past pupils include: Peter Lombard (1555-1625), Waterford-born theologian and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh; his cousin Luke Wadding (1588-1657), Waterford-born Franciscan theologian; William Congreve (1670-1729) and George Farqhuar (1677-1707), both Restoration playwrights; Thomas Prior (1681-1751), founder of the Royal Dublin Society; Kilkenny-born novelist John Banim (1798-1842); William Magee (1821-1891), Archbishop of York; Wellesley Bailey (1846-1937), founder of the Leprosy Mission; Admiral of the Fleet David Beatty (1871-1936), 1st Earl Beatty, First Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet during World War I; and Victor Griffin (1924-2017), Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1969-1991).

Recent past pupils include Daryl Jacob, winning jockey in the 2012 Aintree Grand National, and Irish international hockey players Lisa Jacob and Daphne Sixsmith, along with many leader figures in business, agriculture, sport and the professions.

Past headmasters have included Edward Jones, later Bishop of St Asaph. and John Mason Harden.

When Sam McClure was headmaster, Kilkenny College moved in 1985 to a new campus that an attractive complex of classrooms, dormitories, catering and dining facilities on a landscaped 50-acre site. The newest extension of classrooms is called the Jonathan Swift block in honour of Dean Swift.

Kilkenny College is the Church of Ireland school of the Diocese of Cashel, Ossory and Ferns. Today it is the largest co-educational boarding school in Ireland, and also has a large number of day pupils from Kilkenny City and the surrounding area.

The coat-of-arms of the Ormonde Butlers over the entrance to Kilkenny Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 18th century college building was designed in 1782 by Charles Vierpyl on the site of its earlier counterpart, built in 1667 through the patronage of James Butler, Duke of Ormonde.

The building has classical proportions, with each range of windows diminishing in scale on each floor. The building is slightly obscured and often missed by passers-by because of it is set well back from the line of John Street, and I find it is often best seen from the opposite bank of the River Nore beneath the walls of Kilkenny Castle.

This building has an eight-bay, three-storey side elevation, and the old school building was extensively renovated almost a quarter of a century ago, in 1994, when it was converted into the county hall. The interior was remodelled at the same time, but many of the original features have been retained, including the enriched doorcase, regarded as one of the best in Ireland, with its delicate fanlight of considerable design significance.

The coat-of-arms used by Kilkenny College is derived from the coat-of-arms of the Ormonde Butlers

The school’s coat-of-arms, derived from the coat-of-arms of the Ormonde Butlers, has evolved with some changes over the centuries. The modern version is supported by the letters K and C at the sides, and the date 1538, the year the college was founded, is at the bottom. The motto, Comme je trouve (‘As I find’), also come from the Ormonde Butler coat-of-arms.

The school history, Where Swift and Berkeley Learnt, by Lesley Whiteside and Andrew Whiteside, was published in April 2009.

The former buildings of Kilkenny College, now Kilkenny County Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

How two philanthropists gave Kilkenny its first public library

The Carnegie Library on John's Quay, Kilkenny, the gift of Andrew Carnegie and the Countess of Desart (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

When I first took an interest in researching the genealogy and history of the Comerford family almost 50 years ago in the late 1960s, one of the first libraries I used was the Kilkenny City Library on John’s Quay.

In a day when libraries were often dour and lacking in adequate library, the staff there were cheerful and helpful, and they generously allowed an enthusiastic teenager on day trips open-shelf access to important sources such as William Carrigan’s four-volume History of the Diocese of Ossory.

It was a time long before the internet offered so many facilities to genealogical researches, and I am reminded of their cheerful attitude each time I see the library in its attractive setting on the banks of John’s Quay, reflected in the waters of the River Nore.

The library, which opened in 1910, was built through sponsorship from Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). It was designed prepared by the Tyars and Jago practice in association with E Stewart-Lowrey and Son on a site donated by Ellen Odette Cuffe (1857-1933), Countess of Desart, widow of William Ulick O’Connor Cuffe, 4th Earl of Desart.

Lady Desart was born Ellen Odette Bischoffsheim in London, and became a philanthropist and politician, as well as President of the Gaelic League. She could be described as the most important Jewish woman in Irish history.

She was the daughter of Henri Louis Bischoffsheim, a wealthy Jewish banker of German origin. He was responsible for founding three of the largest banks in the world: the Deutsche Bank, Paribas Bank, and Societe Generale. She married William Cuffe (1845-1898), 4th Earl of Desart, in Christ Church in Down Street, Mayfair, on 29 April 1881. Her younger sister, Amélie Bischoffsheim, married Sir Maurice FitzGerald, 20th Knight of Kerry. For much of their life, the couple lived at Desart Court, between Kilkenny and Callan.

The library on John’s Quay is one of the many philanthropic projects in Kilkenny she sponsored with or in memory of her brother-in-law, Captain Otway Frederick Seymour Cuffe (1853-1912), a former Mayor of Kilkenny. Other projects included Aut Even Hospital (1915) and the Desart Hall. She also established local woodworking and woollen industries.

This Carnegie Library. is a distinctive landmark in the streetscape of Kilkenny. It is a detached, three-bay, single-storey classical-style building, with an elegant bowed Doric portico at the centre, single-bay, single-storey, gabled flanking end bays, and four-bay, single-storey side elevations. The classical theme of the composition is enhanced by finely-detailed dressings to the window openings, and an open work steel turret on an octagonal plan with a copper-clad square-profiled base and a lead-lined ogee dome.

In a cost-effective measure that appealed to Carnegie’s frugal agent, James Bertram (1872-1934), the library was built almost entirely in fine concrete block imitating local Kilkenny limestone. This was an early use of concrete block in the Kilkenny area.

Most of the original fabric has survived in intact, although the unique fittings made by the family-owned Kilkenny Woodworkers Company were removed some time in the 1990s.

Before the library was built, the Kilkenny Circulating Library had a reading room for members in the Tholsel which is now known as City Hall. The annual subscription fee was 11s 4d.

In 1903 and 1904, Kilkenny Corporation agreed to adopt the Public Libraries (Ireland) Act 1855, which allowed the establishment of public libraries in towns with populations of more than 5,000. The Library was to be supported from the rates, but and the maximum rate that could be levied was one penny in the pound.

Kilkenny Corporation approached Andrew Carnegie for a grant to aid the establishment of a free library. The Scottish-born US steel industrialist and philanthropist provided grants for building public libraries in the US, the UK, Ireland and throughout the English-speaking world.

He built and equipped libraries on condition that local authorities provided the site and maintained the service. He promised £2,750 for Kilkenny but then cut this to £2,100 because the rate struck by the Corporation was too low – the rate was to yield £140 but yielded only £105.

The site at John’s Quay was bought for £600 by Lady Desart, who also paid for the furniture. The foundation stone was laid in 1908. The library was handed over to Kilkenny Corporation in 1910 and was opened on 3 November by Lady Desart. Later that day, she was conferred with the Freedom of the City.

Membership of the Library was free to the residents of the borough, but there was a charge for non-residents of 2s 6d or a half crown.

The Reading Society books were transferred to the new library in 1911.

The library was all contained in a square shaped single floor. Originally it had six rooms: a gymnasium used for the library, a reference room, librarian’s room, lending department, reading room and the ladies’ room with an attached toilet.

Until 1972, the Carnegie Library was the only purpose-built facility offering a range of library services in Co Kilkenny. The main changes to the library over the years reflected changes in library practice, as it moved from closed access collections to open access and the rooms were reduced in number.

A country library service did not begin until 1923. The Kilkenny County Library Committee first met that year in the library on John’s Quay. Lennox Robinson attended that first meeting, when Lady Countess of Desart was co-opted to the committee.

Constant debates arose about the censorship of books. On 19 December 1923, for example, it was agreed to remove the works of George Bernard Shaw from circulation.

By 1924, 2,415 volumes had been circulated to various small repositories around the county, known as ‘centres’ and later as ‘adult centres,’ and run by local volunteers. By 1925, 52 centres had been set up around Co Kilkenny, 5,412 volumes were in stock, there were 5.410 registered readers, 2,243 books were in the centres, and 15,820 books had been issued. That year, Kilkenny County Council took responsibility for the County Library Service.

The Kilkenny People reported late last year [25 October 2017] that plans to develop a new city library at 75 and 76 John Street — the former Meubles site — have been shelved in favour of plans to develop the Carnegie library and transform John’s Quay into a cultural quarter.

The chief executive of Kilkenny County Council, Colette Byrne, said the development would be ‘far more than just a library,’ and would offer a multi-functional space of at least 1,5000 sq metres that involves extending the Carnegie Library to the rear.

The proposed designs include the public realm around the library, including the Evans Home building behind the library, towards John Street. The estimated cost of the project is about €4.5 to €5 million, and €2.5 million of that will have to be found locally. The council has plans to relocate the Butler Gallery from Kilkenny Castle to a fully-renovated Evans Home.

As for Lady Desart, she was appointed to the Irish Free State Senate as an independent Senator in December 1922, becoming one of the four women in the new Senate and the first Jew to serve as a Senator in Ireland.

She remained a senator until she died at Waterloo Road in Dublin on 23 June 1933. In her will, she left £1.5 million to the charities she was associated with. She is commemorated in the Lady Desart pedestrian bridge, which was opened beside the library in 2014.