KILMANMAN

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 giant's 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 General 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. 8 ¼., of which £177. 8. 1 ¼. is payable to the impropriator, £59. 16. 6. to the vicar, and £46. 3. 1. 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 R. C. 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 yet visible, and there is a traditional report that in the war 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 General Dunne; Castle Cuffe, of the Rev. J. Baldwin, in whose grounds are the ruins of the baronial house, erected by the first Sir Charles Coote, Bart., and destroyed in 1641. Edge 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.—See CLONASLEE.