LESKINFERE

LESKINFERE, or CLOUGH, a parish, in the barony of GOREY, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 2 ½ miles (S. W.) from Gorey, on the high road to Enniscorthy; containing 1213 inhabitants. During the disturbances of 1798, a battle was fought at Tubbernecarig Rock, in this parish, between the king's troops and the insurgents, in which Colonel Walpole, who commanded the former, was killed.

The parish comprises 5355 statute acres, the greater portion of which is under tillage; the soil in some parts is poor and shingly, but in general moderately good; there is an abundance of marl, which is used as manure. Monalawn, the residence of R. Brownrigge, Esq., a very pleasant villa; and Bernardown, another residence of the Brownrigge family, are in the parish, which is pleasingly studded with neat farm-houses.

The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Ferns, united by act of council, in 1739, to the rectories of Ballycannew, Kiltrisk, and Monomolin, forming together the union of Leskinfere and constituting the corps of the treasurership of Ferns, in the patronage of the Bishop.

The tithes amount to £318, and of the entire benefice to £1037; the glebe-house was built by the late incumbent, in 1805, at an expense of £1400, towards which the late Board of First Fruits gave £100; it has been surrounded by the present incumbent with a thriving plantation. There are 64 acres of glebe in the union, of which 16 are attached to the glebe-house. The church, a handsome edifice in the later English style, with a square embattled tower crowned with pinnacles, was erected in 1831 by a loan of £1250 from the late Board of First Fruits; the churchyard is well planted.

In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Camolin; there is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. About 25 children are taught in the parochial school; the school-house is a neat building, erected chiefly by aid of a grant of £60 from the Lord Lieutenant's fund: the master receives annally £7 from the rector, and £7 from the Association for Discountenancing Vice, with a house and an acre of ground. At Tubbernecarig is a strongly impregnated chalybeate spring.