Almost 800,000 people visited Kilkenny Castle and grounds during 2018, making it the most visited Office of Public Works site in Ireland. The final tally was 799,032 visits last year.
Meanwhile a macabre finding will become a new exhibit in Kilkenny this summer when the skeletal remains of 22 poor people were excavated at the entrance to the Medieval Mile Museum on Mary’s Lane in the center of Kilkenny City two years ago. The remains, believed to be between 400 and 600 years old, were taken away by a team of archaeologists for analysis following their discovery.
Now, a new fascinating permanent exhibit of three female skeletal remains are to become a central part of the story at the award winning Medieval Mile Museum.
“3 Lives 3 Deaths” tells the gripping and tragic story of a woman in her late 40s, aged beyond her years; a teenage girl whose short life of toil was written on her bones and an adolescent who suffered malnutrition. Concealed for centuries, their stories are told for the first time and will perhaps rectify the imbalance of how women were literally second-class citizens.
John Moores University in Liverpool, U.K., is digitizing one skull to create a facial reconstruction. And when completed it will form part of the exhibition.
Curator of the Medieval Mile Museum, Grace Fegan is looking forward to the official opening of the exhibition on July 25. She feels that the story of the three females will make up for the way women were treated in medieval times and the fact that so few of them are interred in the grandiose burial chambers and ornamental tombs at St Mary’s Church.
“We have come along way and an untold story will finally be revealed,” she said.
