Continuing my scrutiny of the 32 counties, I thought this week I would stick with a county in Leinster seeing as last week I wrote about Laois. Therefore, this week I will write about Kildare.

Kildare is an Irish county located to the southwest of Dublin in the province of Leinster. The name comes from the Irish, meaning church (Cill) of the oaks (Dara) .

Maynooth is the historic educational centre of the county. It contains National University of Ireland, Maynooth and St Patrick's College, Maynooth.

In the 6th century St Evin founded Moore Abbey in the Kildare town of Monasterevin.

The town of Kildare is the oldest in the county and the most historic while Naas (Nás na Rí in Irish- meaning meeting place of kings) is the county town.

The Curragh horse-racing course is located in County Kildare. The county is known for the quality of horses bred in the many horse stud farms to which it is home. It is also home to the huge yearly Punchestown race festival. Kildare is home to the National Stud.

The nickname for the Kildare GAA team is the Lilywhites, a reference to the all-white Kildare flag. County Kildare is also known as the Shortgrass County.

According to the most recent census, Kildare has a population of 163,944.

So now you know a bit more about the county of Kildare. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Ray Darcy hails from Kildare though I'm not sure how proud the people of Kildare are about that fact!

# posted by United Irelander @ 6:03 PM