TEMPLEBRYAN

TEMPLEBRYAN, a parish, in the Eastern Division of the barony of EAST CARBERY, county of CORK, and province of MUNSTER, 2 ¼ miles (N. N. W.) from Clonakilty, on the old road to Bandon; containing 496 inhabitants. It comprises 957 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, the gross annual value being £800: the soil is generally light, and that portion of it which is well cultivated is very productive; on the waste land is some excellent turbary. It is in the diocese of Ross; the rectory is appropriate to the see, and the vicarage forms the corps of the prebend thereof in the cathedral of Ross, and in the patronage of the Bishop.

The tithes amount to £134. 13. 11., of which £60 is payable to the prebendary, and the remainder to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Protestant inhabitants attend divine worship at the church of Clonakilty.

In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Clonakilty. On the summit of a gentle eminence are the ruins of the ancient parochial church, of which the foundations and part of the walls only remain: in the burial-ground is the shaft of a cross, 11 feet high, set up by the Knights Templars in 1303, who at the period had possession of the whole parish, and from whom it received its present name. Nearly adjoining the ruins of the church is a small circular building, resembling a round tower, but it is not more than six feet in diameter: and in an adjacent field are the remains of a very extensive heathen temple; six of the stones still exist, the centre one being of white quartz and much larger than the rest. This monument of antiquity, near which is a spacious cave, is described in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 471, A. D. 1742, by the then Bishop of Clogher.