towers round meath

St. Patrick is said to have founded the first monastery here. There is a well preserved Round Tower, which lacks its top windows. It is to be suspected that these originally existed, but were not included in the restoration works when the conical cap was replaced about 150 years ago.

The tower is unusual in that there is a Crucifixion about the round-headed doorway, and there are heads beside the arch. The nearby church was built in the 15th century, but it replaces a Romanesque c...

The monastery at Kells would appear to have been first founded in 804 by monks from St. Colmcille's foundation at Iona who were fleeing from the Viking invasions and seeking a safer place for their treasures. In 877 reliquaries of the saint were transferred to Kells. The monastery was raided by the Vikings in 919, 950 and 969.

The greatest treasure of the monastery - the Book of Kells, now in Trinity College, Dublin - which had possibly been written here in the early 9th century, wa...