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22 Oct 2025
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22 Oct 2025
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The former Kilkenny Tourist Hostel on Parliament Street
The last dedicated tourist hostel in Kilkenny has closed, and is now mooted to become a residence for international protection applicants.
The popular Kilkenny Tourist Hostel on Parliament Street has hosted visitors to the city for many years. Now a notice on the hostel’s website says it has ‘permanently closed as of October 1, 2023’.
Irish and international visitors to the Medieval Mile praised the budget accommodation with recent reviews praising the location, the friendly staff and lovely atmosphere. From a tourism perspective the loss of the hostel, with over 60 beds, in the city is regrettable.
However, it’s now on the cards that the 300 year old Georgian town house will be repurposed as an accommodation centre for international protection applicants (asylum seekers).
Such a process is managed by IPAS (the international protection accommodation service). The local authority, which was given a role in the location of accommodation for arrivals from Ukraine, has no role in the accommodation of international protection applicants.
However, if the building is to be used by IPAS a notice will have to be filed with Kilkenny County Council as part of planning and development regulations. The change of use does not require a planning application.
As part of the process the building will need to have a fire certificate and comply with other requirements.
A Kilkenny People query to The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which oversees IPAS, had not yet received a reply.
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