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Coolbanagher
or Coolbenger Civil Parish, County Laois, Ireland
COOLBANAGHER
or COOLBENGER, a parish in the barony of Portnehinch,
Queen’s county and province
of Leinster; containing with the parish of Ardea or Ardrea
the post town of Emo, and part of that
of Mount mellick, 7456 inhabitants.
It
comprises 8623 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act.
The soil is generally fertile, and there is a considerable tract
of waste land, which is mostly exhausted bog; the system of agriculture
is daily improving. Limestone abounfds and is quaried for building,
repairing the roads and burning into lime for manure.
The
principal seats are Emo Park the residence of the Earl
of Portarlington; Woodbrook of Major Chetwood;
Lauragh of the Rev. Sir Erasmus Dixon Burowes Bart,
Knightstown of Joseph Kemmis Esq., and Shane
Castle of Thomas Kemis Esq.,
From
a desire to introduce manufactures and trade into this part of the
country, for the employment of the population Mr. Kemmis
has established on his estate at Shane an iron manufactory.
The Dublin Grand canal passes through the parish to Mount
Mellick, also a tributary stream which running northward
fals into the barrow atr portnehinch bridge. Petty sessions are
held at Lauragh.
The
living is a rectory, in the diocese of Kildare episcopally
united in 1804, to the rectory of Ardea or Ardrea,
together forming the union of Coolbanagher in the patronage
of the crown; the tieths amount to £276.18s.5½d per
anum. The extent of the union as applotted under the tithe act,
is 15,763 statute acres; and the tithes for the whole amount to
£536.6s.1¾d. per annum.. The glebe house, in Ardea
is a handsome recidence, built in 1790: the glebe comprises 26½
acres. The church also in Ardea is a handsome edifice, erected at
the expense of the late Lord Portarlington, on the summit
of an eminence not far from the sourthern extremity of the union.
In
the Roman Catholic divisions this parish forms part of the
union or district of Portarlington;
the chapel at Emo is a very neat edifice.
There
is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists.
The
parochial school is at Moret and there are about six other
schools at that and other places in the parish: a spacious slated
building was erected for one under the trustees of Erasmus Smiths
charity, at an expense of £500, chiefly defrayed by I.C.
Chetwood, Esq., and the school at Emo is endowed with 20 acres
of land by the Hon. Lionel Dawson. There are about 700 children
in these schools.
The
ruins of the ancient church are still visible, and also those of
the castle of Moret, in the vicinity of which are the venerable
remains of Shane Castle, formerly called “Sion”
or “Shehan Castle”, which was the head of a manor,
when in the possession of Sir Robert Preston, in 1397, but
it has shared the fate of the other castles of Leix. During the
parliamentary war it was seized by the insurgents, in 1641; taken
from them the year following by Sir Charles Coote, retaken
by Owen Roe O‘Nial in 1646 and finally surrendered in
1650 to Cols. Hewson and Reynolds, who demolished the outworks,
and left nothing but he present building remaining. It is situated
on a high conical hill, and was fitted up in the last century by
Dean Coote, who converted it into a very pleasant residence
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