Kells setting the pace with walking tour success story

Pictured: Customer Service Award winners Pat Butler, Brenda Meehan, Cosette Olohan, Ina Olohan, Libby Finnegan Ann Dolphin with Failte Ireland’s Martina O’Dwyer.

A TEAM of volunteer tour guides is making Kells a great place to visit on your staycation this year.

The volunteers are giving walking tours of the historic town, highlighting Kells' monastic past, its Georgian elegance and other historic features.

The group of tour guides was established last year and has recently resumed the now socially distanced tours of the heritage town.

The tour guides and staff of the Tourist Centre, which is located in the Heritage Centre in the old courthouse in Kells, were presented with a Failte Ireland’s Accredited Service Excellence award at the Heritage Centre last week.

Visitors can book a tour at the Heritage Centre in the old Courthouse, the staff see which volunteer guide is available and the tours take place at 11am and 2pm.

Dr Ina Olohan, one of the volunteer guides says, the tours generate a lot of interest.

“Of course this year, all our tourists are Irish, while last year, we had a lot of foreign visitors.”

Ina, a member of Kells Tourism Network, explains that there are 10 volunteer guides.

“We show them Georgian Kells and the monastic sites and crosses. We also tell them about the Spire of Lloyd, the famine, more recent history such as Regal Lager and the silk making industry.”

The volunteer guides all took part in a training programme last year, with a number of local historians.

The guided tours will be available to visitors until the end of September and can be booked through the Heritage Centre on the Navan road.

The Heritage Centre is located in the beautifully restored Kells Courthouse and is home to a tourism and arts hub.

It hosts a special permanent Boyne Valley Exhibition designed to inspire tourists and local people to explore the town of Kells and spend time discovering its wonderful history, culture, arts and heritage.

The courthouse was designed and built in 1801 on the commission of Lord Headfort of Kells, and gifted to the town. Interactive multimedia touch screens and video engages and inspire visitors to the exhibition to explore Kells and the surrounding Boyne Valley.

A facsimile copy of the Book of Kells, a replica of the Kells Crozier (an elaborately decorated staff that was a symbol of the office of a bishop or abbot), and the Kells town model are all on view and Boyne Valley Tourism staff are on hand to give advice.