Tucked away in an eastern corner of a garden behind the former bishop’s palace in Kilkenny is this charming little pavilion. Its construction is attributed to the writer and antiquarian Richard Pococke who lived in the main house 1756-65 while serving as Bishop of Ossory (although some sources attribute it to Charles Este, who held the same office 1735-40, and then went on to commission a new episcopal palace in Waterford). Inside the single room pavilion is a chimneypiece flanked by arched plaster recesses, the walls on either side panelled in wood. A door on the south side formerly opened into a Doric colonnade which in turn led to a door in the north transept of St Canice’s Cathedral, thereby allowing the prelate to move from one building to the other without stepping outdoors: in the early 19th century, architectural purists decried the colonnade as being out of keeping with the medieval site and it was removed. As for the pavilion, it has long been called the Robing Room, suggesting this was where the bishop donned the appropriate garments before taking a service in the cathedral. More likely it was simply intended to be a summerhouse and indeed this was how the building was described by a later Bishop of Ossory, William Newcome who in 17775 wrote that it was ‘of a very good size with a fireplace, fit for drinking tea or a glass of wine.’ The Robing Room underwent restoration some 20 years ago when the palace, vacated by the Church of Ireland, was being prepared for its current occupant, the Irish Heritage Council.  

The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by