OPW Heritage Ireland places in County Kilkenny

An 11th-century round tower stump and a 12th-century church later converted into a fortified dwelling, on St Brendan's early Christian site beside Castlemorris Wood in south Kilkenny; free, open-air.

A Fitzgerald tower house of the 15th or 16th century with the round turret of its lost bawn, south-west of Kilkenny, in a place named after the church burned here in 1316; free, open-air, exterior viewing only.

Limestone show cave north of Kilkenny with striking calcite formations and the site of a recorded Viking massacre of 928, seen on guided tours of 700 steps, open all year; adult €5, free for English Heritage members.

Twelfth-century Cistercian abbey near Thomastown famous for its carved cloister arcades and O'Tunney tombs, with a small visitor centre, open March to early December; adult €5, free for English Heritage members, OPW car park.

Ireland's largest enclosed ecclesiastical site, the walled Augustinian priory of about 1193 on the King's River in County Kilkenny, known as the Seven Castles of Kells; free, open at all times, summer guides, car park, river walk.

Norman castle of the Butlers above the Nore in Kilkenny city, with Victorian state rooms, the Picture Gallery and 21 hectares of free park; adult €8 self-guided or €12 guided, free for English Heritage members, council parking nearby.

A ninth-century sandstone high cross, the Snake-Dragon Cross, carved with serpents, a stag hunt and Noah's Ark, in the graveyard of an early monastery at Killamery in south Kilkenny; free, open-air, reached on foot from a lane.

Leac an Scáil, Ireland's tallest dolmen, a Neolithic portal tomb with a five-metre granite capstone on two tall portal stones near Mullinavat in south Kilkenny; free, open-air, a short grassy walk from the lane.

The tower and north wall of Knocktopher's 12th-century parish church, with a Romanesque doorway, a 14th-century double effigy of a civilian couple and a 1622 chest tomb, in the village graveyard; free, open-air.

One of Ireland's earliest parish churches, a small Hiberno-Romanesque building of the 12th or early 13th century dedicated to St Muicín, in a walled graveyard near Knocktopher; free, open-air, a short walk across a field.

A roofless medieval parish church south of Tullaroan village, with Grace's Chapel of 1543 and its carved doorway of Tudor roses, vines and the Grace lion, and tombs of the Graces and Butlers; free, open-air.

A 12th-century granite church with a carved Romanesque doorway and a rebuilt high cross, on the site of St Fiacre's early monastery near Graiguenamanagh in east Kilkenny; free, open-air.