Day trip from Kilkenny to Rock of Cashel?

Perhaps you could check the Kilkenny Tourism Office website or by phone, and see if they have any tours, or check with you hotel. Alternatively, they may know of a driver who could take you there.

I've only taken one day tour on Bus Eireann out of Dublin but I noticed lots of those types of trips from bus stations in Spain. They take you to see places, give you time to look around then bring you back to where you started. Ideally, they'll take you to some nearby sights as well (Cahir Castle, Hore Abbey).

Ask at the TI, also check at the bus station. If all else fails, see if you can negotiate with a taxi for a return trip (I've done that in Mexico and Poland).

Hi, thank you all for your suggestions. I called the tourism office in Kilkenny and they confirmed that there are no tours from there to The Rock of Cashel, but they did give me the numbers of 2 taxi services, which I contacted. They quoted me 250 euros round trip. I think that at this point, we are going to either skip The Rock of Cashel or leave Kilkenny a day or two early, so that we can take a tour to Cashel.
By the way, if you have been to Kilkenny, how many days would you recommend staying there?
Thanks again.

We loved Kilkenny but it is a small town and I think two nights would be enough unless you are using it as base. We only stayed one night, toured the castle and Smithwick's and walked through the town. We wished we had another night there. The Rock of Cashel is beautiful and impressive to see up on the hill and I would hate to have missed it but 250 Euro seems so high to me.

250 euros is a lot. It would be too much for me. 2 1/2 hours also seems too much. How much would a taxi want one way? Maybe you can get a taxi there and call a separate taxi back? In Ireland using an Uber app calls a taxi (they don't allow people to drive their own cars). If you don't have a phone for that. I'll bet you could ask the office to call a taxi for you.

Cashel to Kilkenny is difficult by public transportation. I used a bus/train combination. I had taken the train to Cork and grabbed the bus to Cashel from there(which I think only took an hour), but since I was travelling on to Kilkenny I had to take two buses to get to the train and then on to Kilkenny. I seem to recall that this was the fastest route, but in the end one bus was almost an hour late for some reason so I don't know how long it might have taken if that hadn't happened. You may want to look into taking the train to Cork and then the bus from there if you really want to do it.