I was hunting through old pictures again recently and came upon these snaps of St. Canice's cathedral and some medieval gables and roofs of Kilkenny, taken from the top floor the city centre multi-story car park.

Kilkenny City is still much vaunted, and advertised, as one of Ireland's medieval jewels.

But it sparkles less brightly now than it did before the local authority got at it in the 1970's and 1980's and destroyed much of its heart with entirely inappropriate development - not least of which was the introduction, smack in the middle of the medieval city, of a shopping centre that gave need for the multi-story car park.