TAUGHBOYNE

TAUGHBOYNE, a parish, in the barony of RAPHOE, county of DONEGAL, and province of ULSTER, 5 miles (W. S. W.) from Londonderry, on the road to Raphoe; containing, with the village and ancient disfranchised borough of St. Johnstown, 6335 inhabitants. St. Baithen, son of Brendan, a disciple and kinsman of St. Columb, and his successor in the abbey of Hy, founded Tegbaothin in Tyrconnell: he flourished towards the close of the sixth century. The parish, according to the Ordnance survey, comprises an area of 15,773 ¾ statute acres, including a large portion of bog: the land is chiefly arable, and of good quality. There are some extensive slate quarries, but the slates are small and of a coarse quality. The river Foyle, which bounds the parish on the east, is navigable for small boats to St. Johnstown, where a fair is held on Nov. 25th.

The living is a rectory and vicarage, in the diocese of Raphoe, and in the patronage of the Marquess of Abercorn: the tithes amount to £1569. 4. 7 ½.; and the glebe, comprising 317 acres, is valued at £260. 6. 5 ½. per annum. The glebe-house was originally built in 1785, at a cost of £1313 British, and subsequently improved at an expense of £1399 by the then incumbent. The church was erected in 1626; the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have lately granted £268 for its repair.

In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Lagan, or Raymochy; the chapel was built about 50 years since. In the parochial school partly supported by an endowment of Colonel Robertson, a school under the London Hibernian Society, and two schools supported by subscription, about 200 children are educated; there are also nine private schools, in which are about the same number of children, and five Sunday schools: two school-houses have been lately erected by the Marquess of Abercorn. There is a dispensary for the poor.