Kilskeer

KILSKYRE, or KILSKEER, a parish, in the barony of UPPER-KELLS, county of MEATH, and province of LEINSTER; containing, with the post-town of Crossakeel and several villages, 4537 inhabitants. An abbey was founded here at a very early period, which was destroyed by the Danes, but some of its ruins still exist. The parish comprises about 11,340 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, which are chiefly under tillage. There are about 800 acres of bog and waste land, and abundance of limestone. Near Bensfort extensive operations for draining the land are in progress.

The principal seats are Newgrove, the residence of H. O'Reilly, Esq.; Miltown, of J. Kearney, Esq.; Silvan Park, of  W. Keating, Esq.; the glebe-house, of the Rev. C. Osborne; and Boltown, the property of Col. Battersby. The village of Kilskyre, which is the property of W. Blayney Wade, Esq., comprises 29 neatly built houses and 156 inhabitants. Petty sessions and fairs are held at Crossakeel, which see.

The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Meath, and in the patronage of the Crown; the tithes amount to £425. There is a glebe-house, with a glebe of 22 acres. The church, which is a handsome structure with a lofty spire, is built on an eminence at Crossakeel, and has been recently repaired by a grant of £137 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the R. C. divisions this is the head of a union or district, comprising Kilskyre, Clonabreny, and Diamor, and containing chapels at Kilskyre and Ballinlough, the latter of which is a neat edifice.

There is a school at Crossakeel on Erasmus Smith's foundation, in which about 100 children are educated, and to which W. Blayney Wade, Esq., contributes £6 per annum, besides granting two acres of land, on which the schoolhouse was erected at an expense of £200, partly defrayed by Mr. Wade and partly by the trustees. There are also two private schools, in which about 120 children are educated, and a Sunday school. Viscount Killeen has given a site for a school-house at Kilskyre, and another is about to be established at Ballinlough.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.