Kilskeer, Cill Scíre, Co. Meath

Cill Scíre · Co. Meath

A townland and a handful of houses on the road below Loughcrew - a sixth-century monastery, a round tower stump, and the parish that bred the man who wrote The Red Flag.

Kilskeer - the maps and the parish both spell it Kilskyre - is barely a village. It is a townland and a scatter of houses 10 kilometres southwest of Kells, in the high quiet country below the Loughcrew hills. The name is Cill Scíre, the church of Scíre, and the church she founded is why anyone ever stopped here at all.

St Scíre, the story goes, was a granddaughter of Laoghaire, the High King at Tara who fenced with St Patrick. She put a monastery on this ground in the sixth century and it grew into a place of learning, the way these early Irish foundations did. Then it was plundered and burned by the Danes in 949 and battered again in the centuries after, the way these places also did. What is left is a stump of round tower and a clutch of old tombs in the graveyard across from the present church.

That church - St Alphonsus, built between 1847 and 1854 through the work of Fr Kelly - was designed by James Joseph McCarthy, the Gothic Revival architect they called the Irish Pugin. It is a serious building for so small a place, and it is the one thing in the village a passing visitor would actually stop the car for.

The other reason to know Kilskyre has nothing to do with stone. Jim Connell, born in the townland of Rathniska in this parish in 1852, went to London, watched a stationmaster lower a red signal flag during the 1889 dock strike, and wrote The Red Flag - the anthem the labour movement has sung ever since. Crossakiel, the next village, keeps his memory with a monument and a festival. Brian O'Higgins, poet and Sinn Féin man, came from here too. A small parish with a long reach.

Population

~150 (village; parish larger)

Founded

Monastery 6th century; present church 1847-1854

Coords

53.70° N, 7.00° W

01 / 06

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The saint

Cill Scíre - the church of Scíre, granddaughter of a High King.

St Scíre, said to be a granddaughter of Laoghaire, founded a monastery here in the 6th century. It was plundered and burned by the Danes in 949 and raided again afterward. The round tower stump and old tombs sit in the graveyard opposite the present church.

Stories & lore → 02 The radical

The parish that produced Jim Connell, who wrote The Red Flag.

Connell was born in 1852 in the townland of Rathniska in this parish. In 1889 he wrote the socialist anthem sung across the world ever since. The Red Flag Festival commemorates him at Crossakiel and Navan over the May bank holiday.

Stories & lore → 03 The setting

Loughcrew on the skyline, Kells ten kilometres down the road.

This is north Meath drumlin country, within sight of the Loughcrew cairns and close to the monastic town of Kells. There is no shop you can count on and no pub in the village. Come for the stone and the quiet, then drive on.

Walks & outings →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

6th century, burned by the Danes in 949

St Scíre's monastery

St Scíre - locally remembered on 28 September, though the old martyrologies fix her feast at 24 March - founded a monastery here in the sixth century. It became large and prosperous, a centre of learning in the way the early Irish foundations were. The Annals record it plundered and burned by the Danes in 949, and it was raided again in the centuries that followed. Geophysical survey has since traced the buried ring of the monastic enclosure in the fields around the modern graveyard. The site sits within a landscape thick with the same period - the passage cairns of Loughcrew on the skyline, and two more early Christian sites at Clonabraney and Diamor close by.

A stump, and a castle named in the Down Survey

The round tower and Faire Castle

In the old cemetery opposite the church stand the surviving remains of the round tower and a scatter of ancient tombs. The Down Survey of the 1650s names an 'old Faire Castle' on the same ground - a later medieval structure raised on the monastic site, long gone now. It is the usual Irish layering: a saint, then a Norman or Gaelic strongpoint, then a graveyard, then the present parish church, all on one small piece of consecrated earth.

1847-1854, the Irish Pugin

McCarthy's church

The present Church of St Alphonsus was built between 1847 and 1854 through the efforts of Fr Kelly, and designed by James Joseph McCarthy - the architect contemporaries called the Irish Pugin for how thoroughly he carried Augustus Pugin's Gothic Revival principles into Irish parish building. That a country parish this small was raising a McCarthy church in the years straddling the Famine tells you something about both the man and the priest. The building was given a major restoration in 1999 and 2000.

Born Rathniska 1852, anthem written 1889

Jim Connell and The Red Flag

Jim Connell, eldest of thirteen children of a tenant-farming family, was born in 1852 in Rathniska in this parish. As a young man he joined the land agitation and the Fenians, was blacklisted as a docker in Dublin for trying to unionise the men, and moved to London. In December 1889, on a train home from a Social Democratic Federation meeting during the great London dock strike, he watched a stationmaster raise and lower a red flag - and wrote The Red Flag, the song the labour movement has sung for over a century. His last public appearance was at Crossakiel in 1921; a monument by Michael Keane was unveiled near his birthplace in 1998, and the Red Flag Festival still gathers in his name at Crossakiel and Navan over the late-May weekend.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

The graveyard and round tower The whole heritage of the place is on two facing sites: the present church and, opposite it, the old cemetery with the round tower stump and the ancient tombs. Walk between the two, read the older stones, and you have seen the core of Kilskyre. There is no marked loop and no signage to speak of - this is a stop, not a hike.

A few hundred metres on footdistance

20 minutestime

St Scíre's Well The holy well sits out on the road toward Clonmellon and was restored by the local historical society in 2008. Holy wells were the working faith-furniture of early Christian Ireland - a quiet spot for devotion and the odd cure. Easy to miss at speed, so go slowly on the Clonmellon road and watch the verges.

Roadside, on the Kilskyre-Clonmellon roaddistance

15 minutestime

Loughcrew cairns Not in Kilskyre, but on the skyline above it and the real reason to be in this corner of Meath. The passage tombs on Carnbane East and West predate the pyramids; the equinox sun lights the chamber of Cairn T. Roughly fifteen minutes by road toward Oldcastle. Check access before you go - the cairn key and opening hours change.

Short steep climb to the summit cairndistance

Half a day with the drivetime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Best window. The land is green, Loughcrew is at its finest, and the Red Flag Festival lands over the late-May weekend at Crossakiel and Navan. St Scíre's old feast falls in March.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings and the easiest driving for the Loughcrew climb. The village itself stays quiet either way - there is nothing here that fills up.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The Loughcrew equinox draws people to the cairn in late September, and the 28 September date is when the parish traditionally remembered St Scíre. Good low light on old stone.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and exposed high ground. The graveyard and church are always there, but Loughcrew can be wind-scoured and the back roads slick. Bring proper boots and low expectations of facilities.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a village with services

There is no reliable shop and no pub in Kilskyre. It is a townland, a church, and a graveyard. Stock up and fuel up in Kells before you come, and treat this as a stop on a Loughcrew loop rather than a destination in itself.

Hunting for a tall round tower

What survives is a stump, not a soaring Glendalough-style tower. The interest here is the layered site - saint, castle, graveyard, church on one patch - not a single dramatic monument. Adjust the camera accordingly.

Confusing Kilskyre with Crossakiel

They are different villages a couple of kilometres apart. Jim Connell was born in Rathniska townland in Kilskyre parish, but the monument and the festival are at Crossakiel. If you have come for the Red Flag, point the car at Crossakiel.

Getting there.

By car

From Kells, about 10 km southwest on local roads toward the Loughcrew and Clonmellon direction. Roughly an hour from Dublin via the M3 to Kells, then the back roads. A car is effectively essential.

By bus

No regular bus serves the village. The nearest scheduled services and Local Link rural routes run from Kells; check current Local Link Louth-Meath-Fingal timetables for the parish roads.

By train

No railway. The nearest mainline stations are on the Dublin-Sligo line and at Drogheda on the Dublin-Belfast line, both a long drive away. This is car country.

Next on the tour

Co. Meath

Kells

Ten kilometres northeast. The monastic town with the high crosses and the Book of Kells name. Your base for food, fuel and a bed.

Co. Meath

Carnaross

A few kilometres east toward Kells. Crossroads village with a livestock mart and the fine Castlekeeran monastic ruin a kilometre south.

Co. Meath

Oldcastle

West past Loughcrew. The market town under the cairns - the natural pairing with a Loughcrew climb.

Co. Westmeath

Clonmellon

South on the holy-well road, just over the Westmeath line. The estate village strung along the old Dublin-Cavan road.