Kilmokea

KILMOKEA, a parish, in the barony of SHELBURNE, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 6½ miles (S.) from New Ross, on the road to Fethard; containing 1225 inhabitants. It comprises 3361 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, and is chiefly under tillage. The soil is light but in some parts very good; the green slab on the banks of the Barrow, containing a testaceous sediment equal to the finest marl, is used for manure, and the state of agriculture has been much improved under the auspices of the South Wexford Agricultural Association. A part of the parish, called "the Island," has since the recession of the tide been embanked and reclaimed. The Barrow is navigable here for vessels of the largest class, and an inlet from it extending to the village of Campile is navigable for small craft. Kilmanock is the residence of G. Powell Haughton, Esq.; and Fruit Hill, of G. Glascott, Esq., in whose demesne, which is remarkable for its fine timber, is a clump of evergreen oaks, here considered a great curiosity.

It is a rectory, in the diocese of Ferns, forming part of the union of Whitechurch and of the corps of the prebend of that name in the cathedral of Ferns: the tithes amount to £297. 4. 7¼. There is a handsome glebe-house, with a glebe of 12a. Or. 38p. In the R. C. divisions it is the head of a union or district, called Sutton's parish, comprising the parishes of Whitechurch, Kilmokea, and Ballybrazill, and part of Old Ross and St. James's: there is a handsome chapel at Horewood, with a commodious house for the priest; the old chapel has been converted into a school, with apartments for the master and mistress. About 130 children are educated in the school, and there is a private school, in which 40 are taught. Here are the remains of Ballykearogue castle and of its chapel; they are stated to have been built by Roger de Sutton, who in 1170 accompanied Robert Fitzstephen and Hervey de Montemarisco into Ireland, and obtained from the latter large grants of land in the barony of Shelburne: this district is often called after him Sutton's parish. In "the Island" are vestiges of two intrenchments, by some supposed to have been thrown up by the Danes to defend the pass to Ballinlaw ferry.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.