Brandon Hill is the highest mountain in County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Kilkenny. The territory of the county was the core part of the ancient Irish Kingdom of Osraige which in turn was the core of the Diocese of...

, Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

. It has an elevation

Summit (topography)

In topography, a summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a local maximum in elevation...

 of 515 m (1,689.6 ft). It is situated 7 miles east of Thomastown

Thomastown

-Landmarks:Kilfane Glen is a restored historic 1790s garden of romantic era with waterfall, woodland walks and cottage orne. The garden is listed as an Irish Heritage garden and was awarded assistance in 1993 by the European Union Cultural Commission...

, in the south of County Kilkenny. Brandon Hill is in the barony

Barony (administrative division)

Tenure by barony was the higher feudal tenure of a lord who had subordinate knights. Originally, a barony was the land subject to a baron and could, in England after the Norman Conquest, consist of estates scattered throughout the country or in several regions (Not to be confused with...

 of Gowran

Gowran

Gowran is a village and former town in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Gowran Park race course is located nearby. Gowran is located on the N9 national primary road where it is crossed by the R702 regional road.-History:...

 and in the province

Province

A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...

 of Leinster

Leinster

Leinster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the east of Ireland. It comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Mide, Osraige and Leinster. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the historic fifths of Leinster and Mide gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled...

. The village of Graiguenamanagh

Graiguenamanagh

-Recreation:Walking and hillclimbing are among the more popular pursuits of Graiguenamanagh area and with the South Leinster Way meandering through the lovely Barrrow Valley and traversing nearby Brandon Hill, scope is provided for the a gentle stroll or a vigorous,day-long hike. The Barrow's...

 is at the base of the hill.

It is the termination of the chain of granitic

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 mountains that raise from the shores of Dublin bay. The base of Brandon Hill on the side of the River Barrow

River Barrow

The Barrow is a river in Ireland. It is one of The Three Sisters; the other two being the River Suir and the River Nore. The Barrow is the longest and most prominent of the three rivers...

 and the hill running to Graigue is composed of schist

Schist

The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...

rock. This blackish siliceous schistus, sometimes containing grains of quartz and when it is broken it has a shivery texture and is hard enough to scratch glass.
There are a few beds of marble and limestone gravel near the foot of the mountain.