KILMOYLAN

KILMOYLAN, a parish, in the Shanid Division of the barony of LOWER CONNELLO, county of LIMERICK, and province of MUNSTER, adjoining the post-town of Shanagolden, and containing 3326 inhabitants. This parish is near the river Shannon, and comprises 14,197 ¾ statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act: the land in the northern part is fertile and rests on limestone, but the southern parts are hilly. About one-third of it is in cultivation; the remainder is rough mountain pasture and bog. There are very few agricultural implements, as most of the land is under spade husbandry.

The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Limerick, and in the patronage of the Vicars Choral of Limerick cathedral, to whom the rectory is appropriate: the tithes amount to £232. 7. 11., of which one-third is payable to the vicar and the remainder to the lessees of the vicars choral. There is no church, glebe-bouse, or glebe.

In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Shanagolden, and has a chapel in the small village of Ballyhahill. There is a private school, in which about 80 children are educated. Here are the remains of Shanid castle, one of the principal fortresses of the Earls of Desmond, and from which originated their war cry of Shanid-a-boo: the walls are ten feet thick and forty high, and rest upon an artificial conical mound on the top of a hill, which rises abruptly from a fertile plain and is surrounded by numerous intrenchments. Near the castle is a spacious circular fort surrounded by embankments and fosses.