Drumglass

DRUMGLASS, a parish, in the barony of DUNGANNON, county of TYRONE, and province of ULSTER, on the road from Armagh to Coleraine; containing, with the market-town and post-town of Dungannon (described under its own head), 5926 inhabitants. According to the Ordnance survey it comprises 3503¾ statute acres, of which 30 are waste land and the remainder arable and pasture, the greater part of which is fertile and well cultivated, particularly near the town. The sur rounding country is ornamented with several gentle men's seats, the principal of which are Northland Lodge, the residence of the Earl of Ranfurly, proprietor of the town and manor; Dungannon House, of E. Evans, Esq.; Millton, of J. Falls, Esq.; the Castle, of T. K.

Hannington, Esq.; Eillymeel, of J. Shiel, Esq.; and the seat of J. W. S. Murray, Esq. Here are extensive collieries worked by the Hibernian Mining Company under lease from the Lord-Primate. The upper and best seam is about a foot thick; under it is a thin stratum of iron-stone, and then a seam of coal two feet thick. About 180 persons are employed, who raise 500 tons weekly.

A drift is being made from these works to coal beds on the Earl of Ranfurly's estate, about a mile distant; and a line of railway has been marked out from the collieries to the Tyrone canal at Coal Island. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Armagh, and in the patronage of the Lord-Primate: the tithes amount to £200, and there is a glebe-house with a glebe of 59 acres near it, and one of 347 acres in the parish of Donaghmore.

The church, which is in Dungannon, is a large and handsome edifice, for the repair of which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have recently granted £307. In the R. C. divisions it is the head of a union or district, called Dungannon, comprising the parishes of Drumglass, Tullaniskin, and Killyman, and contain ing four chapels, one of which is at Dungannon. There are meeting-houses for Presbyterians, connected with the Synod of Ulster and the Seceding Synod, both of the second class, and one for Wesleyan Methodists. A royal free school was founded by Charles I. at Dun gannon, at which place is the parochial school, en dowed with £10 per ann. by the rector; and an infants' school was established in 1833. In these and two other public schools about 400 children are educated, besides about 280 in eleven private schools.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.