Kells, County Meath
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Kells (; ) is a town in
County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...
,
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
. The town lies off the M3 motorway, from
Navan Navan ( ; , meaning "the Cave") is the county town and largest town of County Meath, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is at the confluence of the River Boyne and Leinster Blackwater, Blackwater, around 50 km northwest of Dublin. At the ...
and from
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
. Along with other towns in County Meath, it is within the commuter belt for Dublin, and had a population of 6,608 as of the 2022 census. It is best known as the site of Kells Abbey, from which the Book of Kells takes its name. The town is in a
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
of the same name.


Name

The settlement was originally known by the Irish name , later or , and it is suggested that the name "Kells" developed from this.See archival records at An early name for a or fort at the settlement was , this fort probably being located in the centre of present-day Kells. From the 12th century onward, the settlement was referred to in English and Anglo-Norman as Kenenus, Kenelles, Kenles, Kenlis, Kellis and finally Kells. It has also been suggested that Kenlis and Kells come from an alternative Irish name, (meaning 'Head Fort'). Kells, Kenlis and Headfort all feature in the titles taken by the Taylor family. In 1929, became the town's official name in both Irish and English. Following the creation of the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...
, a number of towns were renamed likewise. has been the official Irish-language form of the place name since 1969. In 1993, ''Kells'' was re-adopted as the town's official name in English.


History

Before Kells was a monastery, it was a royal site inhabited by the High King Cormac mac Airt who moved his residence from the Hill of Tara, for what reasons scholars are yet not sure. Kells was an important place on one of the five ancient roads that came out of Tara – this road being named and which ran from Tara to Rathcrogan, another royal site, in
County Roscommon County Roscommon () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the province of Connacht and the Northern and Western Region. It is the List of Irish counties by area, 11th largest Irish county by area and Li ...
. About 560 AD, Colmcille (later known as Columba) a prince of the royal house of the Northern Uí Néill family acquired Kells in recompense of a fault acted against him by his cousin the High King Diarmuid MacCarroll, who granted him the Dun (fortification) of Ceannanus to establish a Monastery. The present monastery at Kells is thought to have been founded around 804 AD by monks from St Colmcille's monastery in Iona who were fleeing
Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9â ...
invasions. In 1152, the Synod of Kells completed the transition of the Colmcille's establishment from a monastic church to a diocesan church. A later synod reduced the status of Kells to that of a
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, Hugh de Lacy was granted the Lordship of Meath in 1182. The religious establishments at Kells continued to flourish under their Anglo-Norman overlords. In the fifteenth century the parish of St. Columba's was granted to the Archdeacon of Meath and his successors. Kells became a border town garrison of the Pale and was the scene of many battles between the Kingdom of Breifne and the Hiberno-Normans (who had heavily intermarried). From 1561 to 1801, the constituency of Kells returned two MPs to the Irish House of Commons. During the
Irish rebellion of 1641 The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was an uprising in Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, initiated on 23 October 1641 by Catholic gentry and military officers. Their demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and ...
, Kells was burned by the O'Reilly clan during their attacks on the Pale. The period of the Great Famine saw the population of Kells drop by 38% as measured by the census records of 1841 and 1851. The Workhouse and the Fever Hospital were described as full to overflowing.


Places of interest

The Kells monastic site, including the Kells Round Tower, is associated with St Colmcille (also known as Columba), the Book of Kells, now kept at
Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
, and the Kells Crozier, exhibited at the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
. The round tower and four large
Celtic cross upright 0.75 , A Celtic cross symbol The Celtic cross is a form of ringed cross, a Christian cross featuring a nimbus or ring, that emerged in the British Isles and Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages. It became widespread through its u ...
es can still be viewed today. Four of the crosses are in the churchyard of St Columba's Church on the Monastic Site. The other Celtic cross was positioned in the middle of a busy crossroads until an accident involving a school bus. It now stands in front of a former courthouse. A roof protects the cross from the elements. A replica also stands safe from the elements inside the museum. Close by the graveyard of St. Columba's church stands a small stone roofed oratory, known as St. Colmcille's House. This probably dates from the 11th century. Access to the monks' sleeping accommodation aloft is by ladder. This small rectangular building is positioned at one of the highest points in the town. Just outside the town of Kells on the road to Oldcastle is the hill of Lloyd, named after Thomas Lloyd of Enniskillen, who camped a large Williamite army here during the wars of 1688–91 against the Jacobites. Here also stands a 30m high building called the Spire of Lloyd, which is an 18th-century lighthouse folly. The area around the tower has been developed as a community park (the People's Park), and includes the Paupers' Grave. Mass is celebrated there annually, and the cemetery is a reminder of the workhouse and extreme poverty engendered by changes in farming practice in the 19th century and during the Great Famine.


Population

The population of Kells town, as of the
2022 census of Ireland The 2022 census of Ireland was held on Sunday, 3 April 2022. It was organised by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and reported a total population of 5,149,139, or an 8.1% increase since the prior 2016 census. It is the highest population rec ...
, was 6,608. In the period between the 1996 and 2022 census, the population almost doubled.


Transport


Roads

Until the opening of the new motorway in June 2010, Kells stood as a busy junction town on the old N3 road with over 18,000 vehicles passing through the town each day. Kells was a renowned traffic bottleneck from both the N3 national primary route (
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
, Cavan,
Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...
and Ballyshannon) and N52 national secondary route (
Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...
, Tullamore and Nenagh) passing through the town centre. The new M3 motorway (opened June 2010) significantly reduces the journey time to Dublin, as well as the numbers of vehicles in the town.


Bus

Kells is served by a regular bus service run by Bus Éireann, the 109, 109A and 109X, which takes about 1.5 hours to Busáras in Dublin. In October 2022 Bus Éireann's
Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...
to Ardee route 167 was extended to Mullingar via Kells. There are several services daily in each direction.


Railway

The original Kells railway station, located on the Oldcastle branch line between Oldcastle and
Drogheda Drogheda ( , ; , meaning "bridge at the ford") is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin. It is located on the Dublin–Belfast corridor on the east coast of Ireland, mostly in County Louth ...
via
Navan Navan ( ; , meaning "the Cave") is the county town and largest town of County Meath, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is at the confluence of the River Boyne and Leinster Blackwater, Blackwater, around 50 km northwest of Dublin. At the ...
, opened on 11 July 1853. It was closed for passenger traffic on 14 April 1958 and finally for all traffic on 1 April 1963. "Meath on Track" are seeking reinstatement of the Navan railway link, and on to Dublin.


Film

'' The Butcher Boy'' was filmed at Headfort House. Other films set in Kells include the Oscar-nominated animated film '' The Secret of Kells''. The Hollywood actress Maureen O'Hara was a native of Kells. Her father Charles came from the town, although Maureen grew up in Dublin. Charles was born in a house at the bottom of Farrell Street in the town, a building that now houses a supermarket, carpet shop and apartments. She visited the town on 26 May 2012 to receive the freedom of the town and to unveil a bust in her honour.


Events

From 2014 - 2021, Kells was home to the documentary film festival, the "Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival". 2021. Guth Gafa is now focusing in impact and outreach screenings of powerful social justice and human rights documentaries Hay Festival Kells was home to Ireland's only Hay Festival, which then transmuted into the current Hinterlands festival.


Education

St. Ciaran's Community School Kells, Navan Road, Kells is a mixed secondary school in Kells which first opened in September 1988 and has around 640 students in attendance. It was first formed by the amalgamation of the Christian Brothers Secondary School and Kells Vocational School. Eureka secondary school Kells, Navan Road, Kells was first opened by Sisters of Mercy secondary education for girls in Kells in classrooms attached to the Convent in 1924. The school moved to a site at Eureka House in 1956 where it was situated until 2019 before moving to the newly built school campus on Cavan Road. St. Colmcille's Boys National school is an all-boys school on the Navan Road, first opened by the Christian Brothers on 20 January 1845. The present school was opened in 1976 and the Brothers, because of a fall-off in vocations, withdrew from the school in 1985. Headfort School is a non-denominational day and boarding private school situated in stunning parkland just outside the ancient town of Kells. Their focus is providing an outstanding all-round education centered on individuality and academic excellence.


Music

Songwriters from the area include Jim Connell (b.1852 in Crossakiel) who wrote the Socialist anthem " The Red Flag", and Dick Farrelly (1916–1990), who wrote the " Isle of Innisfree". Other musicians from Kells include Mícheál Ó Domhnaill (1951–2006), who was a member of The Bothy Band, Relativity, and Nightnoise, and Eamon Carr (b.1948), who is the drummer in the band Horslips. Irish
indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...
bands
Ham Sandwich A ham sandwich is a common type of sandwich. Ham sandwich may also refer to: * Ham Sandwich (band), an Irish indie rock band * Ham Sandwich (song), "Ham Sandwich" (song), by Getter, 2019 * "Ham Sandwich", a 1963 short story by James H. Schmitz * ...
and Turn are also associated with Kells.


Notable people

* Xabi Alonso, Spanish World Cup winning footballer spent time here learning English in a school exchange programme when he was a teenager * Thomas Betagh (1737–1811), Jesuit priest and educationist was born and bred in Kells. * Ray Butler, Fine Gael politician *
Myles Dungan Myles Dungan is an Irish broadcaster and author. He has presented many arts programmes on RTÉ Radio, and has also been a sports broadcaster on RTÉ Television. Since October 2010 he has been the presenter of "The History Show" on RTÉ Radio One ...
, broadcaster, historian and journalist is from Kells. * Alice Stopford Green (1847–1929), Irish historian and nationalist. * Denis Hurley, rugby player, was born and bred in Kells. * Damien McGrane (born 1971), professional golfer is a Kells man.


See also

* List of towns and villages in the Republic of Ireland * Market Houses in the Republic of Ireland * North Meath RFC


References


Notes


Sources


External links

* {{Authority control Towns and villages in County Meath Civil parishes of County Meath Former urban districts in the Republic of Ireland Former boroughs in the Republic of Ireland