Kilroan

KILROAN, or KILLOWEN, or KILLOWNEY, a parish, in the barony of COURCEYS, county of CORK, and province of MUNSTER, 3¼ miles (S.) from Kinsale, on the western side of the entrance to Kinsale harbour; containing 641 inhabitants. This small parish, which is surrounded by the parish of Ringrone, except on the eastern side, where it is bounded by the sea, contains several picturesque glens. The soil is good, but indifferently cultivated: the substratum is of schistose formation, changing into transition rocks traversed by numerous veins of quartz. It is a rectory, in the diocese of Cork, entirely appropriate to the vicars choral of Cork cathedral: the tithes amount to £112. In the R. C. divisions it forms part of the union or district of Courceys. On the cliff at Courtafuteen are the picturesque ruins of the old church, built of unhewn stone and with loop-hole windows.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.