STRADBALLY

STRADBALLY, a parish, in the barony of DUNKELLIN, county of GALWAY, and province of CONNAUGHT, 3 miles (S.) from Oranmore, on the road from Galway to Gort: containing, with the village of Claran-bridge, (which is described under its own head) 1053 inhabitants. The parish, which comprises 4291 statute acres, is situated in the interior of an inlet that proceeds eastward from Kilcolgan Point and receives two rivers which flow through the parish, the Kilcolgan river, frequently called the Carnamart, and the Claran, nearly dry in summer and meeting the sea at Claran-bridge. The surface for the most part consists of large tracts of naked limestone rock, yet affording, in all those places that are covered with soil, a very nourishing herbage for sheep, and where tilled throwing up excellent crops notwithstanding its bad culture: the sea weed collected from the shore is the only manure used, and the too frequent application of it has been found very exhausting: ash timber thrives well. The district is supplied with peat for fuel from Connemara and the coast of Clare by the inlet, which is navigable for small craft to the village.

There is a weekly market on Tuesday at Claran-bridge, and four fairs on the first Thursday after the 11th of Feb., May, Aug., and Nov. The chief traffic, both in the markets and fairs, is in wheat, oats and pigs, which last are bought up by the agents of the provision merchants. There are also fairs at Tubberbracken in May and October, the latter chiefly for turkeys. Kilcornan, the; residence of T. N. Redington, Esq., situated near the village, of which he is proprietor, is about to be enlarged and improved according to the Tudor style of architecture. In the demesne are the ruins of a castle, said to have belonged to a celebrated heroine of the Clanricarde family, named Norah Burke, but better known, from her cruelties, by that of Norah na Kaun, or "Norah of the heads." Lavally is the residence of T. Lynch, Esq. Several old monuments in the neighbourhood during the three last centuries bear the names of members of this family. Rahasane, lately the residence of R. T. French, Esq., and now of his sisters and coheiresses, is a fine, thickly wooded demesne.

The parish is in the diocese of Kilmacduagh: the rectory is appropriate to the see and to the archdeaconry: the vicarage forms part of the union of Kilcolgan.

The tithes amount to £115. 9. 10., of which £28. 17. is payable to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, £55. 2. 10. to the archdeacon, and £31. 10. to the vicar.

The R. C. parish, which is also called Kilcornan and Claran-bridge, is co-extensive with that of the Established Church, and has two chapels: the old chapel is in a retired situation; a stone over the entrance bears the date 1763: the modern chapel at Claran-bridge, a plain slated building, was erected by the late C. and T. Redington, Esqrs., father and grandfather of the present proprietor.

A monastery near the village was also built by the same gentlemen, and has been endowed with seven acres of land, on condition that the tenantry on the Kilcornan estate should be educated gratuitously at the school attached to the establishment. An institution of the religious sisters of charity is about to be endowed, and the building erected by Mrs. Redington, widow of the late Mr. Redington, on a piece of ground given by the present proprietor on similar conditions to the former: his lady contributes £25 per ann. and supplies books and other school requisites to a female school, for which also she has built a school-house: 165 boys are educated in the former of these schools and 66 in the latter.

Near Lavally is the holy well of Tubberbracken, "the Well of the Trout," not much frequented at present. Not far from Kilcornan are the ruins of an old church in a cemetery now not used from a superstitious notion of the peasantry. The castle of Dunkellin, now in ruins, the property of the Marquess of Clanricarde, gives the inferior title of Baron to that nobleman.