Skehana sits in north-east Galway, roughly 16 km north-east of Athenry and a short run from Moylough and Mountbellew. The name comes from the Irish An Sceachanach, the place of the whitethorn - the hawthorn bush that hedges the fields here and turns the lanes white in May. It is a townland and a small rural village in the civil parish of Moylough, in the old barony of Tiaquin. There is no busy main street, no row of shops. This is farming country, and the village is the church, the school, the GAA pitch and the houses scattered around them.
What gives Skehana its shape is the parish and the club. Along with neighbouring Menlough it forms a half-parish within the Roman Catholic parish of Killascobe, an arrangement that goes back to 1848. The parish church was built around 1861 and is listed on Galway County Council's Record of Protected Structures, so the building you see is the genuine nineteenth-century article. Just west of the national school stands the ruin of Garbally Castle, an Anglo-Norman tower house - the older, harder layer of the same ground.
The other thing worth knowing is that Skehana takes its own history seriously. The Skehana & District Heritage group has built one of the better small-place community archives in the county, collecting and sharing the townlands, the families and the photographs of the district. If you want to understand a corner of rural east Galway from the inside rather than the road, that archive is where to start.
Come to Skehana for the country church, the castle ruin by the school and the whitethorn lanes, not for a day out with shops and cafes. It is a real working parish, and it does not pretend to be anything else. For food, fuel and a bed, Mountbellew and Athenry are the places to aim for.
The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.
Skehana is in north-east Galway, near Moylough and Mountbellew and roughly 16 km north-east of Athenry. From Galway city head north-east via Athenry; from the M6 leave near Athenry or Ballinasloe and follow local roads through Moylough. A car is essentially required.
No frequent direct bus serves the village itself. Mountbellew and Moylough are served by TFI Local Link rural routes; check current timetables, and plan on driving the final stretch.
No railway station. The nearest mainline stops are at Athenry and Ballinasloe on the Dublin to Galway line, both a drive away.