Nine hundred years of milling
Skerries Mills
Flour has been milled on this site since at least the 12th century, when the Priory of Holmpatrick held the lands. The five-sail windmill is unique in Ireland. The four-sail mill sits on the site of an ancient fort and dates from the 15th century (c. 1460), predating the monastery closures by almost a century. The watermill is 13th-century. All three are working. The site is run as a not-for-profit social enterprise. Entry fees fund the restoration. Every bag of stone-ground flour you buy is doing actual work.
The saint, the goat, and the monks
St Patrick's Island
Local tradition holds that St Patrick visited the Skerries area in 432 AD and rested on the small island that now carries his name. The story most often told is the stolen goat - Patrick went to the mainland to preach, locals killed and ate his goat, and he expressed his displeasure before moving on. A monastic settlement was founded on the island in the 6th century. Vikings burned it in 797. The ruin is still visible at low tide.
The tern colony nobody visits
Rockabill Lighthouse
Two rocks four kilometres offshore - called The Cow and The Calf - carry a lighthouse built in 1860. The surrounding waters and rocks are a National Nature Reserve and one of the most important breeding sites in Europe for roseate terns. You cannot land. You can watch them from the shore on summer evenings with binoculars. The lighthouse keepers left in 1989 when it was automated. The terns stayed.
The peninsula that used to be an island
Red Island
Red Island was genuinely an island - separated from the mainland by tidal water - until land reclamation connected it. The grassy headland now carries a Martello tower from the Napoleonic period and a large playground. From the high point you can see all five of the offshore islands at once, which is the main reason to walk up there.