Kilkenny resident William Murray on renovating and starting a small business

“I miss the feeling of being in Kilkenny; the air is different”, says chef William Murray, who has temporarily moved to Borris, County Carlow while he and his partner, influencer James Kavanagh, renovate their East Kilkenny home. He is, however, a proud advocate for the Southeast as a whole, extolling the underappreciated beauty of the Carlow-Kilkenny area.

“I’m in both counties all the time,” he says. “There’s mountains and forests and the river running through. I think people think of Carlow town as this commuter town, and they don’t see anything else. It’s so beautiful, the people are amazing, there’s lovely pubs and shops and things to do.”

Murray and Kavanagh moved from Dublin to Kilkenny in 2024, and they have documented the transition on their podcast The Simpler Life. Murray is also an artist, chef and gardener, and he documents his various ventures on Instagram. For now though, the renovation process is taking up much of his energies.

“We had to decide to focus on the boring, important things like underfloor heating, insulation, updating the electronics, the plumbing,” he says. “We had to sacrifice some of the plans for the renovation and leave them down the line.”

The couple are planning to renovate the ground floor of their home this year and revisit upstairs and Murray’s art studio at “stage two of the renovations – which will probably be another ten years before we save up enough money again,” Murray says.

During the pandemic, Murray started his own business, the Currabinny Caravan, a food truck serving coffee and sandwiches. The caravan is currently docked at Shankill Castle, Paulstown, where you can find Murray every weekend.

"It’s been a big learning curve, but it’s made me appreciate all that goes into being a business owner,” he says. “I’m doing it on such a small scale; the idea of scaling up – which we will hopefully, eventually do – is so scary. I feel like I’m putting so much pressure on myself to make everything perfect now, and I’ve got a menu with like four things on it. I can’t imagine what it feels like to own a restaurant serving hundreds of people every day. I have such respect for people who do that.

“We would like a bricks and mortar place eventually. We’ve kind of got our ears to the ground for somewhere in Kilkenny or somewhere around this area. We would love a deli, coffee place, slash shop selling lovely things.”

While he accepts that he will forever be a “blow-in” in Kilkenny, Murray says: “We’ve invested a lot of our energy into making this place our home, involving ourselves in the community, meeting people and making friends.”