placenamesSkreen
An Scrín
Skreen, also written Skryne, preserves carved memorials and a castle reshaped into a country house.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- An Scrín · Irish · main form
- Achall · Irish · main form · historical name
- Skreen · English · main form
Place & story
Carvings in the churchyard
The ruined church stands on the hill east of Tara. Noel French’s 1987 survey records a carved ecclesiastic holding a book and staff set into its wall. In the churchyard, Colmcille’s Cross bears a Crucifixion scene. Another monument, east of the church, displays the arms of the Marward, Cusack and Plunkett families. These details give the prominent ruin a closer history in carved stone and family commemoration. [2]
A castle incorporated into a house
Skreen Castle combines a late medieval tower house with a three-storey country house built around 1780. The architectural inventory dates further remodelling to about 1850, including a battlemented porch and pointed windows. The older tower retains a circular corner turret. Rather than representing a single medieval building, the group records repeated adaptation of a residence over several centuries. [3]
A gap in the parish archive
The Church of Ireland’s archive catalogue records a significant loss of Skryne parish documents in the Public Record Office fire of 1922. Three volumes containing baptisms from 1803 to 1877, marriages from 1804 to 1846 and burials from 1804 to 1877 were destroyed. The surviving parish archive, transferred from local custody in 1993, therefore preserves only part of the documentary record of this community. [4]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Skreen. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Scryne Churchyard: monumental inscriptions recorded August 1987 · Noel E. French, Meath History Hub
- Skreen Castle: register 14326006 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Skryne parish register list: P.0440 · Representative Church Body Library
- Skreen medieval church, County Meath illustration: based on a Skreen Church, Co Meath by C O'Flanagan. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-09-19. How this page was prepared.