KILCUMNEY

KILCUMNEY, or DRUMCREE, a parish, in the barony of DELVIN, county of WESTMEATH, and province of LEINSTER, 4 ½ miles (S. E.) from Castle-Pollard, on the road from that place to Athboy; containing 870 inhabitants. It comprises 2439 statute acres, principally in tillage, and there is a considerable quantity of bog, also some good limestone. The principal seats are Ralphsdale, the residence of Ralph Smyth, Esq., the demesne of which is entered by a beautiful gate; Drumcree, of Robert Smyth, Esq., in whose demesne is a fine lake; and Derry Cottage, of Mrs. Berry.

The living is a rectory and vicarage, in the diocese of Meath, episcopally united, in 1818, to the rectory of Dysertale and the vicarage of Kilweilagh, and in 1821 to the rectory of Killagh, of which this parish and Dysertale are in the patronage of the Bishop; Kilweilagh is in the gift of the Marquess of Drogheda, and Killagh in that of the Crown. The tithes amount to £120, and the gross value of the benefice, including tithe and glebe, is £285. 18. 5 ½.

The church is a neat structure, rebuilt in 1811, for which the late Board of First Fruits granted a loan of £850; the Board also lent £450 for the erection of the glebe-house. The glebe of Kilcumney comprises 36 acres, valued at £54, and there is also a glebe of 18 acres at Killagh, valued at £20 per annum. In the R. C. divisions this parish forms part of the district of St. Mary and St. Feighan, or Collinstown. About 40 children are educated in a public, and about 50 in a private, school. A hermitage existed here in the ninth century.—See DRUMCREE.