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Kilmanman
or Clonaslee Civil Parish, County Laois, or Queen's County.
KILMANMAN,
or CLONASLEE, a parish, in the barony of TINNEHINCH,
QUEEN'S county, and province
of LEINSTER, 4 miles (S. E.) from Balliboy; containing
3186 inhabitants.
The
name signifies the "church of Manman," which he
is said to have founded here in the 7th century. He also built the
monastery of Lanchoil, or Lahoil; and called it Corrigeen,
or the "hermitage of the rocks" It is about
two miles west from Kilmanman church, and near it is a barrow,
called "the giants
grave." The
parish comprises 5817 statute acres of arable and pasture land,
besides between six and seven thousand acres of bog and mountain.
It
is in the diocese of Kildare ; the rectory is impropriate
in Gen. E. Dunne; the vicarage forms part of the union
of Rosinallis, or Oregan ;
and there is a perpetual curacy, consisting of this parish and two
townlands of the parish of Rerymore, called Clonaslee,
which is in the patronage of the vicar. The tithes amount to £283.7
shillings 8¼ pence of which £177. 8 shillings 1¼
pence is payable to the impropriator, £59. 16 shillings 6
pence to the vicar, and £46. 3 shillings 1 penny to the perpetual
curate. The church is in Clonaslee, and has lately been repaired
by a grant of £377 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
In
the Roman Catholic divisions it forms the greater part of the union
or district of Clonaslee, where
the chapel is situated.
There
are two public schools, one at Clonaslee under the trustees
of Erasmus Smith's charity, in which about 150 children are educated,
and four private schools, in which are about 130.
In
this parish is Lough Annagh, which is three miles in circumference,
and abounds with pike, roach, and perch. In the middle of this lake
where it is most shallow, certain oak framing is visible, and there
is a traditional report that in the uprising of 1641 a party of
insurgents had a wooden house erected on this platform, whence they
went out at night in a boat and plundered the surrounding country
The
principal residences are Brittas, that of Gen. Dunne;
Castle Cuffe, of the Rev. J. Baldwin, in whose grounds
are the ruins of the baronial house, erected by the first Sir
Chas. Coote, Bart., and destroyed in 1641; Eden Hill,
of Mrs. Corbett; Brocka Lodge, of W. Dunne Esq.,
Coolnabanch, of W. T. Lane; and the Cottage
of G. Fenamore, Esq.
That
this district was formerly well wooded appears from Queen Elizabeth
having thanked an English commander for conducting a party of her
cavalry in safety through the woods of Oregan. At Killyshane
there was formerly a nunnery, the burial ground of which, with several
monumental stones of great antiquity, was discovered in 1768.
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