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YULEFEST KILKENNY: Celebrate Christmas, The Irish Way

Kilkenny, one of the world’s friendliest cities invites you to celebrate Yulefest, one of Ireland’s best Christmas festivals, delivered with a medieval twist.

Kilkenny, one of the world’s friendliest cities invites you to celebrate Yulefest, one of Ireland’s best Christmas festivals, delivered with a medieval twist.

The best memories are often the simplest ones; colours, lights, food, music and laughter.

Experience Yulefest Kilkenny, an inclusive Christmas festival that invites you to Kilkenny to enjoy a range of seasonal activities throughout December.

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Yulefest Kilkenny will light up the city’s cobbled streets, historic buildings and scenic slipways with a mix of music, arts, food, and family festive events.

Meander through Kilkenny’s merry medieval streets, hear choirs sing whilst lights twinkle against a festive backdrop of seasonal installations and feel oh, so Christmassy!

 

Celebrate the Irish way

Yulefest Kilkenny

The festival will be launched in the courtyard of the castle with a stunning display of medieval flag waving in the Florentine tradition and Kilkenny’s famous Medieval Mile, linking the thirteenth-century St Canice’s Cathedral and the impressive Anglo-Norman castle, will be aglow with Christmas lights, seasonal installations, carousels, carnivals and street entertainment.

Stately 200-year-old Butler House will host a Christmas Garden which transforms its walled garden into a winter wonderland at dusk when light installations come to life. Toy soldiers, reindeer, glittering trees, Santa’s sleigh, and the frosty winter pond will make for a magical experience.

There will also be a Medieval Mile fun run with the runners being spurred on by medieval cheerleaders – if that’s what you’re into!

Other Yulefest highlights include the Christmas Tree Festival in St Canice’s Cathedral where 120 trees, each a work of imagination and art, will create a festive forest.

 

Music of every genre

Yulefest Kilkenny

There’s nothing like a festive soundtrack to get you in the spirit of the silly season!

Vladimir’s Viennese Christmas Gala will see violinist Vladimir Jablokov and his family join tenor Sean Costello, soprano Margaret Keys, a 25-piece orchestra and a 50-piece choir to perform melodies from the Romantic era.

St Mary’s Cathedral will resound with the dulcet tones of the Irish Three Tenors while the Dublin Ukulele Collective will raise the roof of the Medieval Mile Museum with its fun repertoire of classic and modern songs.

There will also be concerts by Hermitage Green, Damian Dempsey, Sean Keane, and many more top-class artists.

 

Spotlight on sustainability

Yulefest Kilkenny

Yulefest Kilkenny is putting the spotlight on sustainability this year; working together with social enterprise ReCreate Ireland and four time Oscar® nominated Kilkenny based animation company Cartoon Saloon to transform selected shopfronts in Kilkenny into magical storyboards through the use of recycled materials.

Sounds like fun? Well get yourself to chilly, but magical Ireland, ASAP!

Click here to find out more about this festive-fun-fest!