History

Rothe House was built between 1594 and 1610 by John Rothe Fitz Piers who constructed it on the Burgage Plot he acquired as one of the city’s leading citizens. The Rothe Family, along with less than a dozen other wealthy families, controlled Kilkenny’s trade and dominated its civic government from the late Middle Ages until the 17th Century.

There are 3 houses built one behind the other.  The first house was completed in 1594 and this is where John Rothe carried out his business as a merchant and lived upstairs with his family. The second house was completed in 1604 and included additional family living space.

The third house, completed 1610, included a kitchen on the ground floor with a large hearth and bake oven, as well as additional rooms on the first and second floors.

Behind the third house are the gardens which contained an orchard, herb and vegetable gardens, a pigeon house, a well, and a summer house at the far end.

John Rothe was involved in the political life of the city serving as the mayor of Kilkenny in 1613. He married Rose Archer, the daughter of another influential Kilkenny family, and had twelve children with her. Their eldest son Peter was born in 1590, followed by eight daughters and three more sons. Following John’s death in 1620 his son Peter inherited the bulk of his estate.

Like his father, Peter Rothe entered local politics. With the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland in 1641 and civil war in England the following year, the leading families in Ireland (both Gaelic Irish and Old English) formed the Confederation of Kilkenny to safeguard their political and religious rights. Peter Rothe, as one of Kilkenny’s leading citizens, took a seat in the General Assembly of the Confederate government. As a cousin of Bishop David Rothe (leader of the Confederate Bishops), he allowed Rothe House be used as the meeting place of the Assembly of Bishops of the Confederation.

With Charles I defeat in the English Civil War his enemies turned their full attention to subduing Ireland. Peter Rothe was punished for his participation in the Confederation by the confiscation of his property and was banished to Connaught by Oliver Cromwell, where he died in 1654.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, the house was home to the Gaelic League or Conradh na Gaeilge. Thomas Mc Donagh,a signatory of the 1916 Proclamation, taught here in 1903.

In 1962 Rothe House was purchased by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society as the headquarters of the Society and as a place to exhibit its collection of artefacts. In 2004 the Society formed the Rothe House Trust to manage the house as a museum of John Rothe’s life and times, and as an exhibit museum of Kilkenny history.