Swimming Pool

The Abbey site is now the Church of Ireland Church of St Columba. It was founded around 804 AD by monks fleeing Viking raids on Iona, who may have brought the Book of Kells — there are several rival theories about this. Kells also came under attack, and the Book was stolen in 1007, but recovered with its gold and bejewelled covers ripped off. The monastery was downgraded to a parish church at the Dissolution but the Book remained here until 1654, when Cromwell was the threat; it was then taken to Dublin for safekeeping where it's on display in TCD Library. Kells Crozier, of unclear provenance but likely 10th century, is in the British Museum in London. What's still here is a sturdy Round Tower, 30 m high but missing its conical cap so it resembles a factory chimney, and several Celtic High Crosses. Best preserved of these is the Cross of Patrick and Columba by the tower, with inscriptions and Biblical scenes.

A small stone-roofed Oratory probably from 10th century. An Oratory was where monks chanted prayers for the illustrious dead, such as former abbots and St. Columb. There's a ladder up to a loft, the monks' sleeping quarters. The Oratory is kept locked, ask around for access.

This tower was built circa 1790 to the memory of Sir Thomas Taylor, 1st Earl of Bective; it's on the hill of Mullach Aiti or Mulloyde. It's a 30-m Doric column with a lantern atop, and you ascend by a 164-step spiral staircase to a viewing balcony, where the gentry watched horse racing and hunting. The tower is often described as a lighthouse, though there's no signal apparatus for the lantern and it's 30 km from the sea. It's also called a folly, but let it not be gainsaid that no ship has been lost in Kells since its construction. The area surrounding has been landscaped as "The People's Park". In the famine years destitute people camped out on the hill, and the Paupers' Grave is a cemetery for many of them.