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Counties Wicklow & Wexford

Ireland

CIVIL PARISHES

Inch

description from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837

INCH, a parish, partly in the barony of ARKLOW, county of WICKLOW, but chiefly in that of GOREY, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 4½ miles (S. W.) from Arklow, on the mail road from Dublin to Wexford ; containing 1487 inhabitants.

A skirmish took place near the church between the advanced guard of King William's army and the partisans of Jas. II., on their retreat from the battle of the Boyne, in which the latter were defeated. The parish comprises 6223 statute acres, of which about 5420 are in Wexford. About one-half is under tillage, and the remainder is good pasture land ; the old system of agriculture is still practised : the butter made here is much esteemed a in the Dublin market. Fairs are held at the village of Coolgraney.

The principal seats are St. Austin's, the residence of T. Bolger, Esq., and Ballyfad, of Miss Forde.

The living is a rectory and vicarage, in the diocese of Dublin, united by act of councils in 1789, to that of Kilgorman, and in the patronage of the Archbishop, of whose mensal they formed part till 1798 : the tithes amount to £300, and of the entire benefice to £450. The glebe-house, towards the erection of which the late Board of First Fruits, in 1791, gave £100, is a commodious building ; and there is a glebe of 17 acres near the church, and another of 20½ acres at Kilgorman. The church, built by a loan of £800 from the same Board, in 1831, is a handsome edifice in the early English style, with a square embattled tower crowned with pinnacles.

In the Roman Catholic divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Arklow, and has a very neat chapel at Ballycoog, with a school-house attached. The parochial schools for which a suitable bulding is about to be erected on the glebe, is held in the old church, and is supported partly by the rector and partly by the Governors of the Foundling Hospital, Dublin. About 80 children are educated in this school, and about 250 in three private schools.

There are dispensaries it St. Austin and Coolgraney. At Ballylarkin and Parkbawn are square intrenchments, supposed to have been made by Cromwell's army. Mr. Bolger's seat is thought to occupy the site of an Augustinian friary, and at Coolgraney, nearly adjoining, are some lands called the Abbey lands. There are several chalybeate springs, but they are not much used, and great quantities of that kind of iron ore commonly called "Cat'sbrain" are scattered over the surface of the ground.

View 1830's Maps of Wicklow & Wexford at Past Homes

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