Kells is a town in County Meath, Ireland. The town lies off the M3 motorway, 16 km (10 mi) from Navan and 65 km (40 mi) from Dublin. Along with other towns in County Meath, it is within the commuter belt for Dublin, and had a population of 6,608 as of the 2022 census. It is best known as the site of Kells Abbey, from which the Book of Kells takes its name. The town is in a civil parish of the same name.
St Columba's Church of Ireland, Kells
Folio 34r of the Book of Kells is illustrated with the Chi Rho monogram
Abbey of Kells, Kells Round Tower dates from the 10th century
Irish, also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language group, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century.
Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in areas of Ireland collectively known as the Gaeltacht, in which only 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022.
The distribution of the Irish language in 1871
Bilingual sign in Grafton Street, Dublin
Bilingual road signs in Creggs, County Galway
Dublin airport sign in both English and Irish languages