//
Waterford Crystal is the brand name of a fine flint glass used in tumblers, chandeliers, decorative bowls, trophies and similar luxury wares. The brand is owned by the Finnish company Fiskars. It's almost all manufactured abroad: the main factory in Kilbarry, south edge of Waterford city, closed in 2009 but there's small-scale production here. Visits are by guided tour, taking 50 min and demonstrating the glass-making process. Then, of course, you troop to the gift shop.
This is the Church of Ireland (Protestant) cathedral, next to the museums. It was built in Georgian style 1773-79 replacing the 13th-century Gothic cathedral, from which the Catholics had been ejected at the Reformation. When the old one was demolished, they found remarkable medieval vestments now in the museum.
The Roman Catholic cathedral stands on the Quays. It was completed in 1793 on the site of a chapel when the Penal Laws against Catholic assemblies were relaxed. It's in Romanesque style resembling a particularly august bank.
Chapel, shrine and museum commemorating the work of the Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844). Widowed young, he gave up his business and threw himself into the education of the city's impoverished youngsters. Others joined him and by 1803 Mount Sion was established as a school, monastery, and teacher-training centre, in an era when Roman Catholic education was slowly recovering from the Penal days of "hedge schools". But as the initiative expanded, Rice as a layman had no authority in the church, and had to laboriously seek permission from the local bishop whenever one of his teacher-priest Brothers was to be relocated. In 1820 he obtained papal authority to manage these Christian Brothers, and the scheme extended geographically and to secondary education. A minority remained subject to the bishops under the earlier arrangements and these were called the Presentation Brothers. Both societies remain active internationally, but the Christian Brothers' regime in the 20th and 21st centuries was marked by systematic physical and sexual abuse of their pupils. Rice lived in retirement at Mount Sion and died there. In the 20th century a campaign began for his beautification. In 1976 a boy who seemed sure to die of a gangrenous colon had a relic of Rice placed at his bedside and recovered fully; post hoc ergo propter hoc and in 1996 Rice was declared a saint.
70 acres (28 hectares) of woodland garden and a 4-acre walled garden, a riot of colour in summer. The Georgian mansion isn't open to visit.
An old wool mill turned into an art-space and gardens. No dogs.
Has theatre, film and dance.