The village takes its name from the Irish language word for a river or stream (sruth) and from the early medieval Cistercian abbey, the ruins of which still survive on the banks of the Inny.

[3][4] While the original medieval settlement built up around this religious site and the nearby fording point on the river, a number of archaeological finds (including of the Clonbrin Shield in 1906) indicate activity in the area from at least the Bronze Age.

[7] The novelist, playwright and poet Oliver Goldsmith is believed to have been born in 1728 at Pallas, very near to the village, where his father resided as a local curate.

[8] The location is marked by a replica of the Goldsmith statue found at the entrance to Trinity College Dublin.

The Abbeyshrule Aerodrome is located just outside the village, while the Royal Canal has been reopened to tourist water-borne traffic in recent years.[when?]