Horetown

HORETOWN, a parish, in the barony of SHELMALIER, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 3½ miles (S. W.) from Taghmon, on the old road from New Ross to Wexford; containing 1149 inhabitants. On the 20th of June, 1798, Gen. Moore, at the head of 1200 of the royal troops, was intercepted at Goff's-bridge, in this parish, by a body of 5000 or 6000 insurgents, which he repulsed with considerable loss. The parish comprises 3977 statute acres, and contains Horetown, the seat and extensive demesne of W. Goff, Esq.; Tottenham Green, of the Rt. Hon. and Rt. Rev. Lord R. Ponsonby Tottenham, Bishop of Clogher; Rockview, of C. Heatley, Esq.; and Rakeenduff, of J. Goff, Esq.

It is a rectory, in the diocese of Ferns, episcopally united, in 1759, to the rectory of Kilgarvan, the vicarages of Ballyingley, Donowney, and Inch, and the impropriate curacy of Ballylennon, together constituting the union of Horetown, in the gift of the bishop: the tithes amount to £213. 6. 10., and of the entire benefice to £530. 7. 11¾ There is neither glebe-house nor glebe. The church is a very neat building in the demesne of Horetown, and has recently been repaired by a grant of £108 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In its erection were used the remains of a Carmelite monastery, which was founded here in the 14th century by the Furlong family, and granted at the dissolution to Sir John Davies. In the R. C. divisions the parish is in the unions or districts of Adamstown and Taghmon, and has a small neat chapel. There are three private schools, in which about 230 boys are educated, and a Sunday school.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.