Skreen
An Scrín

The Wild Atlantic Way
STOP 04 / 04

An Scrín · Co. Sligo

The shrine — a small parish village named for a relic of St Adomnán.

Skreen — An Scrín — is a small parish village in west Sligo on the N59, fifteen kilometres west of Sligo town. The name is literal: it means the shrine, after a reliquary said to belong to St Adomnán, the 7th-century abbot of Iona who wrote the Life of St Columba and gave the place its connection to the saint of Drumcliff. The shrine and the original abbey are long gone. The name stayed.

What is here is a parish church, an older ruined church and a few houses around the crossroads. The present Church of Ireland was built in 1818 on the old monastic site; the ruined predecessor on the same ground dates from around 1550. The Catholic church at Dromard a short distance away, dedicated to Ss Peter and Paul, was built in 1828 by Fr Peter Dowdican. Skreen and Dromard share a parish.

There is no village in the usual sense — no pub strip, no shop run, no main street. Use Skreen as a place to stop briefly on the way along the N59 to Dromore West, Easky and Enniscrone. The graveyard at the old church is the half-hour reason to pull in.

Walk score

A few houses around a church

Coords

54.2667° N, 8.6833° W

01 / 04

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 name

An Scrín, the shrine of Adomnán.

Skreen takes its name from a shrine — said to be of St Adomnán, the 7th-century abbot of Iona and biographer of Colmcille. The relic and the abbey are long gone; the name carried.

Stories & lore → 02 The church

Two churches in two centuries.

The ruined church is a c. 1550 building on older ground. The present Church of Ireland was built in 1818. The Catholic church Ss Peter and Paul nearby was built in 1828.

Stories & lore → 03 The location

On the N59 between Sligo and Dromore West.

Skreen is fifteen minutes west of Sligo on the N59. Drive past it without trying and you have driven past it. The parish is large, the village is small.

Next stops →

02 / 04

Stories & lore.

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

Granted by Tipraid of Hy-Fiachrach

The shrine of Adomnán

The civil parish was anciently called Knock-na-Moile and was granted by Tipraid, chief of the territory of Hy-Fiachrach, to St Columb (Colmcille). The grant became associated with St Adomnán — Colmcille's successor as abbot of Iona, who wrote the Life of Columba — and the village took its present name from a shrine to Adomnán erected here. The original abbey was raided and razed by Vikings in the 9th century.

Ruin and replacement

Two centuries of churches

The ruined parish church on the old site dates from around 1550. The present Church of Ireland was built on the same ground in 1818. Sloping down toward Dromard, the Ss Peter and Paul Catholic church was built in 1828 by Fr Peter Dowdican, replacing an older chapel of around 1731 whose remains can still be seen nearby.

03 / 04

Things to do outside.

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

The old church and graveyard Park at the parish church. The ruined building and the older graves are in the same enclosure. Read the headstones; some date from the 18th century.

0.5 kmdistance

30 min on sitetime