ROSSMERE

ROSSMERE, ROSSMIRE, or ROSSMORE, a parish, partly in the barony of DECIES-without-DRUM, but chiefly in that of UPPERTHIRD, county of WATERFORD, and province of MUNSTER; containing, with the post-town of Kilmacthomas (which is separately described), 2484 inhabitants. It forms a narrow slip of land separating the portions of Upperthird barony; and within its limits, at Newtown, on the confines of the three baronies of Upperthird, Middlethird, and Decies-without-Drum, it was designed to build a new town, of which the streets were marked out and paved, but only a few houses were built, and these have since mostly gone to ruin. It is a vicarage, in the diocese of Lismore, and in the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire, in whom the rectory is impropriate: the tithes amount to £500, of which £300 is payable to the impropriator, and the remainder to the vicar. The church is a modern structure, towards the erection of which the late Board of First Fruits granted a loan of £750, in 1831; and there is a R. C. chapel. About 150 children are educated in two private schools; and there is a Sunday school under the superintendence of the curate.