STONEHALL

STONEHALL, a parish, in the barony of CORKAREE, county of WESTMEATH, and province of LEINSTER, 6 ¼ miles (N.) from Mullingar, on the road from Rathowen to Castletown-Delvin; containing 632 inhabitants. The parish, which comprises 2441 statute acres of good land, one-half of which is arable and the remainder pasture, borders on the north-east upon the most picturesque portion of Lough Dereveragh, over which rises the hill of Knockbody, commanding a view of a range of heights to the south: to the west are other high hills, at the bottom of which, and on the side of a small lake, are the vestiges of the old parish church: the land is principally under tillage, with some bog, marshy land and mountain. Mornington, the seat of Owen Daly, Esq., is in the parish.

It is in the diocese of Meath, and is one of the three parishes forming the union of Taghmon, or Multifarnham, but the tithes, amounting to £90, are wholly impropriate in the Marquess of Headfort: it is also a perpetual curacy, comprising the parishes of Stonehall and Multifarnham, and in the patronage of the Incumbent of Taghmon; the income of the perpetual curate is £113. 2. 3 ¾., arising from £64. 12. 3 ¾, payable by the rector of Taghmon, £37 from the augmentation fund of Primate Boulter, and the glebe of 11 ½ acres, valued at £11. 10. per annum. The glebe-house, which is 1 ½ mile from the church, was built in 1817 by a gift of £450 and a loan of £50 from the late Board of First Fruits: both glebe-house and glebe are in the parish of Multifarnham. The church, a plain badly constructed edifice, in indifferent repair, was built in 1809 by a gift of £600 from the same Board.

In the R. C. divisions it is part of the union or district of Rathconnell. In the hill of Polnagoth there is a remarkable cavern of considerable depth.

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