Discover Kells

A monastery you walk through on the way to the shops

Colmcille is said to have founded a church at Kells in the sixth century, but the place mattered most after 804, when the Columban community on Iona, raided again and again by the Vikings, was granted land here as a refuge. The relics of the saint were brought over from Iona in 878, and for the next few centuries Kells was the head house of the Columban monasteries in Ireland. The great illuminated gospels now in Trinity were kept here, which is how they got the name, though whether they were written here, on Iona or in both places is still argued. It was stolen from the porch of the stone church here in 1007.

The fabric that survives is unusually complete for a working town. The round tower and three of the high crosses stand in the churchyard of St Columba's, the Church of Ireland church built in 1778 on the site of the monastery. The Market Cross, which stood at the crossroads for centuries, now sits under a canopy in front of the 1801 Courthouse on Headfort Place, and the Courthouse itself is the tourist office, with a facsimile of the Book of Kells and a model of the town inside. Up Church Lane, St Colmcille's House is a stone-roofed church that may be the oldest building in Kells, and beside it the Kells Printing Works opened in June 2026 in an old sawmill full of cast-iron presses.