KING-WILLIAM'S-TOWN

KING-WILLIAM'S-TOWN, a village, recently erected by government, in the parish of NOHOVAL-DALY, barony of DUHALLOW, county of CORK, and province of MUNSTER, 9 ½ miles (S. E.) from Castle-Island, on the river Blackwater, and on the new government road from Castle-Island to Roskeen Bridge; the population is returned with the parish. It is situated nearly in the centre of the crown lands of Pobble O'Keefe, comprising about 9000 statute acres, which formed part of an extensive territory forfeited by the O'Keefes in 1641, and have since remained in the occupation of the lessees of the crown. On the expiration of the last lease, granted about a century since to the Cronin family, it was determined by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, on the recommendation of their surveyor, Mr. Weale, to retain the estate in their own hands; to commence a series of experimental improvements in draining, planting, building, &c.; and by the construction of new roads to render accessible this hitherto wild, neglected, and uncultivated district. For these purposes the commissioners were empowered, by an act passed in 1832, to appropriate £17,000 from the revenues of the crown, to which the Grand Juries of Cork and Kerry added presentments amounting to £7937.

The works were accordingly commenced in Sept. 1832, under the superintendence of Mr. Griffith, the government engineer; and after considerable progress had been made in the intersection of this mountain district by two important lines of road (noticed in the article on the county of Cork), the erection of the village was commenced on the eastern bank of the Blackwater, on the road to Castle-Island, which here crosses the river over a handsome stone bridge of two elliptic arches. It chiefly consists of a row of neat houses with shops, and of dwellings for workmen, situated on the northern side of the road; at the western extremity near the bridge is a commodious dwelling-house with suitable out-offices, at present occupied by the sub-engineer, but intended for an inn, on the completion of the model farm-house now in course of erection near the village, which will be his future residence. Immediately opposite is a neat garden and nursery, extending to the river, which, though formed in the centre of a deep bog, has produced flowers, vegetables, and seedlings of a superior description, and from which nearly 50 acres of mountain land have already been planted.

To the east of the nursery garden a handsome school-house in the Elizabethan style has been erected; it is surmounted by a cupola and its front ornamented by a clock; and it is in contemplation to erect a chapel, with a residence for the priest. The village is well supplied with water from a well on the Kerry side of the river. Three substantial farm-houses have been erected in the vicinity for tenants of the estate, in lieu of the miserable mud cabins which they previously occupied; and, as the land is gradually reclaimed, others will be erected on different parts of the estate, of which nearly 100 acres have already been brought into cultivation on an improved system, and made to produce excellent crops of grain and potatoes; and about 60 acres of mountain land have been drained for meadow and pasture.

A vein of culm has been lately discovered and worked to a considerable extent for burning limestone, of which a large supply is obtained from the quarries at Carrigdulkeen and Taur, in the adjoining parishes of Kilcummin and Clonfert. A branch road to Mount Infant is in progress, to complete the direct communication with the former quarry, and with the roads to Killarney and Millstreet; a road to Newmarket is nearly completed; and it has been suggested that a cross road should be made from King-William's-Town to open a direct communication with the limestone quarries at Taur, and to form a junction with the new road between Abbeyfeale and Newmarket.