KILCULLIHEEN

KILCULLIHEEN, or KILCLOHEEN, a parish, in the county of the city of WATERFORD, and province of MUNSTER, 1 ½ mile (E. N. E.) from Waterford; containing 1333 inhabitants. It comprises 2182 statute acres, of which about 729 are in tillage, and 1296 in pasture; and was originally part of the county of Kilkenny, but by grant of Charles I. was transferred to Waterford, with which it is connected by a wooden bridge over the Suir from Ferry bank. Near the bridge is a large ship-building establishment. The principal seats are New Park, the residence of the Rt. Hon. Sir John Newport, Bart.; Belmont House, of H. Winston Barron, Esq.; Killaspy, of A. Sherlock, Esq.; Rockshire, of the Hon. Mrs. Greene; Sion Lodge, of C. S. Tandy, Esq.; and the residences of Major Snow, Capt. Snow, and A. R. Pope, Esq. The parish is in the diocese of Ossory; the rectory is impropriate in the corporation of Waterford, and the vicarage has been united from time immemorial to the rectory of Muckalee. The tithes amount to £110, of which £65 is payable to the impropriators, and £45 to the vicar. The church was built by aid of a loan of £900, in 1820, from the late Board of First Fruits, and has recently been repaired by a grant of £300 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the R. C. divisions it forms part of the district of Slieruagh, and contains a chapel. About 60 children are educated in a private school. In 1151, Dermot Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, founded a nunnery here as a cell to that of St. Mary de Hogges, near Dublin, and it was afterwards richly endowed by King John and David Fitz-Milo: it was sometimes called the Nunnery De Bello Portu, and at the dissolution was granted to the corporation of Waterford.