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County KILKENNY: a county
of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, bounded N. by Queens County,
E. by Carlow and Wexford, S. by Waterford, and W. by Waterford and Tipperary.
The area is 511,775 acres, or about 800 sq. m. The greater part of Kilkenny
forms the south-eastern extremity of the great central plain of Ireland,
but in the south-east occurs an extension of the mountains of Wicklow
and Carlow, and the plain is interrupted in the north by a hilly region
forming part of the Castlecomer coal-field, which extends also into
Queens County and Tipperary. The principal rivers, the Suir, the Barrow
and the Nore, have their origin in the Slieve Bloom Mountains (county
Tipperary and Queens County), and after widely divergent courses southward
discharge their waters into Waterford Harbour. The Suir forms the boundary
of the county with Waterford, and is navigable for small vessels to
Carrick. The Nore, which is navigable to Innistioge, enters the county
at its north-western boundary, and flows by Kilkenny to the Barrow,
9 m. above Ross, having received the Kings River at Jerpoint and the
Argula near Innistioge. The Barrow, which is navigable beyond the limits
of Kilkenny into Kildare, forms the eastern boundary of the county from
near New Bridge. There are no lakes of any extent, but turloughs or
temporary lakes are occasionally formed by the bursting up of underground
streams.
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