GRANGEFORTH, a parish, in the barony and county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 2 miles (S. W. by S.) from Tallow, on the road to Carlow ; containing 9$6 inhabitants. By inquisition taken in 1601 it appears that it belonged to Fferdoroghe O'Gonnogane, but it was granted to Sir John Ponsonby in 1669. It is a rectory, in the diocese of Leighlin, forming part of the union of Urglin: the tithes amount to £264. In the R. C. divisions it is part of the union or district of Tullow, and contains a chapel. There is a public school, in which about 150 children are educated.

HACKETSTOWN, a market-town and parish, partly in the barony of BAIXYNACOR, county of WICKLOW, but chiefly in that of RATHVILLY, county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 6f miles (S. E.) from Baltinglass, on the road from Wicklow to Carlow; containing 4434 inhabitants. In 1798 it sustained two attacks from the insurgent forces, one on the 25th of May, which was successfully repulsed by the yeomanry and a detachment of the Antrim militia j the other on the 25th of June, when a body of insurgents, amounting to several thousands, advanced against it at five in the morning. The garrison, consisting of 170, mostly yeomen, marched out to meet them, but, after a few volleys, were obliged to retreat, the cavalry by the road to Clonmore, and the infantry, 120 in number, into the barrack, -where they maintained their position throughout the day behind a breastwork in the rear of it.

The town was fired in several places by the rebels, who, after various ineffectual attempts to force an entrance to the barrack and a garrisoned house by which it was flanked, retreated, and in the night the garrison retired on Tullow. The town, which consists of 131 houses, is situated on a rising ground, below which flows a branch of the Slaney, and commands fine views. It is a constabulary police station, and has a penny post to Baltinglass, and a dispensary.

A patent was granted in 1635, by Chas. I., to the Earl of Ormonde for a market on Wednesday and fairs on the Tuesday after Nov. 1st, and the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The market is now held on Thursday, but only during the summer months from March to August, for the sale of meal and potatoes; and the fairs are' on Jan. 13th, the first Thursday in Feb., March 12th, April 13th, May 4th, June 2nd, July 13th, Aug. 21st, Sept. 18th, Oct. 17th, the third Thursday in November, and Dec. 91st. The parish comprises 31,570 statute acres, of which 11,954 are applotted under the tithe act: about onesixth of the land is arable, nearly one-half pasture, and the remainder bog and waste ; the latter is chiefly situated in the eastern part of the parish, and large blocks of granite are dispersed throughout.

The principal seats are Woodside, the residence of S. Jones, Esq.; Ballyhelane, of J. Brownrigg, Esq.; and Ballasallagh House, of J. Hogier, Esq. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Leighlin, episcopally united in 1693 to the vicarage of Haroldstown, and in the patronage of the Bishop: the tithes amount to £553. 16. 11., and of the benefice to £619. 15. 11. The glebe-house was erected in 1819, by a gift of £300 and a loan of £500 from the late Board of First Fruits; the glebe comprises 8 | acres. The church is a neat building, with a square embattled tower surmounted with pinnacles, which was erected and the church roofed anew, in 1820, by a gift of £600 and a loan of £500 from the late Board of First Fruits; it has recently been repaired by a grant of £559 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the churchyard is a monument to the memory of Capt. Hardy, who was killed in 1798 while defending the town. In the R. C. divisions it is the head of a union or district, comprising the parishes of Hacketstown and Moyne, and parts of Haroldstown, Clonmore, and Kiltegan j and containing chapels at Hacketstown, Killamote, and Knockanana.

Near the church is a very neat place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists, recently erected. The parochial school is supported by the rector and a small payment from the scholars; and there is a national school in the R. C. chapel-yard.

KELLISTOWN, or KELLYSTOWN, a parish, partly in the barony of FORTH, but chiefly in that of CARLOW, county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 4½| miles (S.E.) from Carlow, on the road from that place to Newtown-Barry; containing 662 inhabitants. It comprises some elevated grounds, which command extensive prospects; and in it is Moyle, the residence of T. Bunbury, Esq. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Leighlin, and in the gift of the Crown for two turns, and the Bishop for one: the tithes amount to £361. 12. 6. The church is a small plain building, for the erection of which the late Board of First Fruits granted a gift of £600 and a loan of £100, in 1810; it was lately repaired by a grant of £155 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The glebe-house was built in 1801, by aid of a gift of £100 from the late Board; the glebe comprises 20a. 2r. 23p. In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Gilbertstown. One of the ancient round towers stood here till 1807, when it was polled down to make room for the belfry of the church. The remains of the old church denote an early date; in the burial-ground are some tombstones of the Cummins family, formerly proprietors of this place.

KERNANSTOWN, a parish, in the barony and county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 2 miles (N.) from Carlow, on the road to Castledermot; containing., 419 inhabitants. It is considered a separate parish for civil purposes only; in the ecclesiastical divisions it appertains to those of Urglin, Clonmulsh, and Carlow.

KILLEDMUND, a village, in the parish of KILTENNEL, barony of IDRONE EAST, county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, on the road from Myshall to Enniscorthy j containing 47 houses and 236 inhabitants. This place being situated at the western foot of  Mount Leinster, includes within its scenery the Blackstairs mountains and Scullogh Gap : during the disturbances of 1798 it was burnt by the insurgents. It contains the parish church and school, and has fairs on March 12th, and July 15th.

KILLERICK, or KILLERRIG, a parish, in the barony and county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 5½ miles (E. by N.) from Carlow, on the river Slaney; containing, with part of the suburbs of the post-town of Tallow, 1261 inhabitants. A preceptory of Knights Templars was founded here in the reign of King John, by Gilbert .de Bocard, which, at the suppression of that order, was granted to the Knights Hospitallers, and, at the general dissolution, to Sir Gerard Aylmer. In 1331, the Irish burnt the church, with the priest and eighty persons who had assembled in it; but the Pope ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to excommunicate all the persons engaged in the perpetration of this atrocious act, and to lay their lands under an interdict. The parish comprises 3841 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, and valued at £3405 per annum, which, with the exception of about 100 acres, is good arable and pasture land.

The principal seats are Duckett's Grove, the residence of J. D. Duckett, Esq.; and Russell's-town Park, of W. Duckett, Esq. It is an impropriate curacy, in the diocese of Leighlin, forming part of the union of Urglin: the rectory is impropriate in Messrs. Humphreys and Bunbury, who receive the tithes, amounting to £360, out of which £18. 9. 2¾. is paid to the curate. At Friarstown are the ruins of a castle and of a religious establishment.

K1LLINANE, a parish, partly in the barony of IDRONE EAST, but chiefly in that of IDRONE WEST, county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 1½ mile (S. W.) from Bagnalstown, on the road from Gowran to Carlow : containing 899 inhabitants. Killinane House is the residence of — Groome, Esq., and Malcolmville, of Capt. Mulhallen; the latter is situated on rising ground above the Barrow, and commands extensive views. The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Leighlin, forming the corps of the chancellorship, and in the gift of the Bishop : the tithes amount to £270. This parish is annexed, under the provisions of the act of the 4th of Geo. IV., c. 86, to the parish of Wells, and the inhabitants enjoy all the rights of its church, as if they were parishioners. In the R. C. divisions it forms part of the union or district of Old Leighlin. The old church is in ruins.

K1LTEGAN, a parish, partly in the barony of  RATHVIIXY, county of CARLOW, and partly in the barony of BALLINACOR, but chiefly in that of UPPER TALBOTSTOWN, county of WICKLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 3 miles (W. N. W.) from Hacketstown, on the road to Baltinglass; containing 3815 inhabitants, of which number, 136 are in the village. This parish comprises 15,681 statute acres, under an improving system of agriculture, and there is a large tract of bog and mountain land. Limestone gravel is burnt for manure, and granite is abundant. High Park is the residence of E. H. Westby, Esq.; the original mansion was burnt by the insurgents in 1798 ; the demesne, which comprises about 400 statute acres, contains some very fine old timber. Hume Wood is the residence of W. W. Fitzwilliam, Esq.

The village contains 22 houses and a dispensary, and is a station of the peace preservation police, of which there is one also at Fortgranite. A patent exists for eight fairs in the year, but none are held. The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Leighlin, episcopally united, in 1804, to the rectory and vicarage of Kilranelagh, and in the patronage of the Bishop by agreement with the Crown ; the rectory is impropriate in Sir R. Steele, Bart. The tithes amount to £516, of which £340 is payable to the impropriator, and £176 to the vicar; the tithes of the union amount to £369.16.11. Adjoining the church is the glebe-house, for the erection of which the late Board of First Fruits, in 1816, gave £400 and lent £370 : the glebe comprises 20 acres, for which £2 per acre is paid. The church is a handsome edifice with an embattled tower and spire, erected by a gift of £500 and a loan of £320 from the same Board; it was enlarged in 1826, at an expense of £1200, half of which was defrayed by the Board, and has been recently repaired by a grant of £191 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Hacketstown, and has a chapel at Kilmoat. In the village is a school supported by the trustees of Erasmus Smith's charity; the schoolhouse was built at an expense of £300; there are about 52 children of both sexes in the school. There is also a national school for males and females; the schoolhouse is in the old chapel-yard. At High Park and Kilmoat are raths; on opening one at the former place about three years since, an urn of coarse pottery was discovered, which contained ashes and bones. There are ancient burial-places on the townlands of Kiltegan and Drim.

KINEAGH, a parish, partly in the barony of RATHVILLY, county of CARLOW, but chiefly in that of KILKEA and MOONE, county of KILDARE, and province of LEINSTER, 2 miles (W. by S.) from Baltinglass, on the road from Dublin to Wexford; containing 1441 inhabitants. Agriculture is improving, and there is fine granite for building. The principal seats are Bettyfield, the residence of — Hutchinson, Esq.; Rickettstown, of the Rev. J. Whitty; Philipstown, of J. Penrose, Esq. The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Dublin, and in the patronage of the Vicars Choral of St. Patrick's cathedral, Dublin; the rectory is partly appropriate to the Bishop of Kildare and the vicars choral of St. Patrick's, and partly impropriate in the Duke of Leinster, H. Cumming, Esq., and J. D. Duckett, Esq.

The tithes amount to £334. 2. 2½., of which £80 is payable to the bishop, £80 to the vicars choral, £2!. 17. 9. to the Duke of Leinster, £14. 11. 7. to H. Cumming, Esq., £22. 18. 9. to J. D. Duckett, Esq., and £114. 14. 3½. to the vicar. There is a glebe-house, and the glebe comprises 18a. 3r. 24p. A neat church was built about 1834, by a grant of £900 from the late Board of First Fruits. In the R. C. divisions it is partly in the union or district of Castledermot, in the diocese of Dublin, and partly in that of Rathvilly, in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. Here are the ruins of the old church and of an abbey.

LEIGHLIN (OLD), a parish, the seat of a diocese, and formerly a parliamentary borough, in the barony of IDRONE WEST, county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, \\ mile (S. S. W.) from Leighlin-Bridge, on the road to Castlecomer; containing 3530 inhabitants. This place has from a remote period been distinguished for its religious establishments, of which the earliest was a priory for Canons Regular, founded by St. Gobban about the close of the 6th or commencement of the 7th century. A grand synod was held here in 630 to deliberate on the proper time for celebrating the festival ot Easter, which was attended by St. Laserian, who had been consecrated bishop by Pope Honorius and sent as legate from the holy see. In 632, St. Gobban built a cell for himself and brethren at another place, and relinquished the abbey to St. Laserian, who made it the head of an episcopal see, over which he presided till his death in 638; and so greatly did the monastery flourish that, during the prelacy of St. Laserian, there were at one time not less than 1500 monks in the establishment.

The priory was plundered in 916, 978, and 982, and in 1060 it was totally destroyed by fire. Among its subsequent benefactors was Burchard, son of Gurmond, a Norwegian, who either founded or endowed the priory of St. Stephen, which being situated in a depopulated and wasted country, had frequently afforded refuge and assistance to the English, in acknowledgment of which Edw. III. granted to the prior a concordatum in 1372. This priory was dissolved by Pope Eugene IV., in 1432, and its possessions annexed to the deanery of Leighlin.

The town appears to have derived all its importance and all its privileges from the see. Bishop Harlewin, who governed it from 1201 till 1216, granted the inhabitants their burgage-houses, with all franchises enjoyed by Bristol, at a yearly rent of 12d. out of every burgage. which grant was confirmed by his successor; and in 1310, Edw. II. granted to Ade Le Bretown certain customs to build a tower for the defence of the town, and to maintain three men-at-arms and two hobblers, to protect the inhabitants from the attacks of the native Irish. During the prelacy of Richard Rocomb, who succeeded in 1399, there were 86 burgesses in the town, but it was so frequently plundered and desolated by successive hostilities, that it was reduced to an insignificant village.

The inhabitants received a charter of incorporation from Jas. II., in the 4th of his reign, the preamble of which recites that the town had been a free borough, and returned two members to the Irish parliament, which it continued to do till the Union, when it was disfranchised, and the £15,000 awarded as compensation was paid to the late Board of First Fruits, to be applied in promoting the residence of the clergy. Since the Union the corporation has become extinct; there are only 20 thatched houses and about 100 inhabitants in the village.

The DIOCESE of LEIGHLIN is the smallest of the five which constitute the ecclesiastical province of Dublin. Nothing particularly worthy of notice is recorded of the successors of St. Laserian till the time of Donat, who was made bishop in 1158, and after whose death the succeeding prelates were invariably appointed from the Arms of the Bishoprick. English clergy. Notwithstanding the devastation and plunder of the see in the continued hostilities of early times, it experienced no irreparable impoverishment till the succession of Daniel Cavauagh, in 1567, during whose prelacy various grants and long leases were made to his friends, reserving for his successors only some very trifling rents ; and to such poverty was it reduced that, after his decease in 1587, it was granted in commendam to Peter Corse, Archdeacon of the diocese, and afterwards held with the deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin.

 In 1600, Robert Grave was advanced to the see of Ferns, to which this diocese was then annexed, and both continued from that time to be held together till 1836, when, on the death of Dr. Elrington, the last bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, both sees were united to the bishoprick of Ossory, under the provisions of the Church Temporalities' Act, according to which, the see estate of Ferns and Leighlin remains with the bishop of the three united dioceses, Ferns, Leighlin and Ossory; and the see estate of Ossory, which is the suppressed bishoprick, becomes vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, together with the mensal lands of Ferns and Leighlin; the residence of the bishop being by that act fixed at Kilkenny, where the bishops of Ossory have heretofore resided; the bishop therefore keeps his former residence and acquires a larger see estate.

The diocese of Leighlin is of very irregular form, extending 50 miles in length and varying from 8 to 16 miles in breadth: it comprehends part of the counties of Kilkenny and Wicklow, a considerable portion of the Queen's county, and the whole of the county of Carlow; and comprises an estimated superficies of 318,900 acres, of which 17,500 are in the county of Kilkenny, 43,000 in Wicklow, 122,000 in Queen's county, and 137,050 in the county of Carlow. The lands belonging to the see comprise 12,924 statute acres of profitable land; and the gross annual revenue, on an average of three years ending 1831, amounted to £2667. 7. 6f-. The chapter consists of a dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacon, and the prebendaries of Tecolme, Ullard, Aghold, and Tullowmagrinagh. The economy estate of the cathedral arises from rents of tithes reserved by lease out of the parishes of Tullowcrine, Slyguff, Ballinacarrig, Rahul, Liscoleman, and Old Leighlin, which, on an average of three years ending Sept. 1831, amounted to £158. 13. 10. per ann., ap plied to the payment of the perpetual cure and the repairs of the cathedral. There are four rural deaneries, namely, Leighlin, Carlow, Tullow, and Maryborough. The consistorial court of the diocese is held at Carlow, and consists of a vicar-general, three surrogates, a registrar, and two proctors.

The total number of parishes is 80, comprised in 59 benefices, of which 14 are unions of two or more parishes, and 45 are single parishes; of these, 5 are in the patronage of the Crown, 10 in lay or corporation patronage, 9 in joint or alternate patronage, and the remainder are in the patronage of the Bishop or incumbents. The number of churches is 49, and there are four other Episcopal places of worship ; the number of glebe-houses is 25. In the R. C. divisions this diocese is united with Kildare, and is suffragan to the R. C. archiepiscopal see of Dublin: the number of parochial benefices and clergy is given with the diocese of Kildare; the number of chapels is 64. The parish comprises 9738 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act, and there are about 400 acres of bog. Agriculture is improving; there are limestone and flagstone quarries, and coal exists but is not worked. Old Leighlin is a rectory, belonging in moieties to the bishop, as part of the see estate, and to the chapter of the cathedral, as part of the economy fund : the rectory of Tullowcrine belongs also to the economy fund, and a perpetual curate is endowed to officiate at the cathedral and to attend to the duties of both parishes, of which the dean and chapter are the incumbents.

 The tithes amount to £461.10. 9½.; the glebe-house was built by a gift of £450 and a loan of £50 from the late Board of First Fruits, in 1820 ; the glebe comprises 12a. lr. The cathedral, which is also the parish church, is situated in a secluded spot surrounded with hills: it is a plain ancient structure, consisting of a nave, 84 feet long, and chancel, 60 feet in length, with a square tower 60 feet high, surmounted by a low spire. It was rebuilt, after having been destroyed by fire during the prelacy of Bishop Donat; and the choir was rebuilt by Bishop Sanders in 1527 ; the western entrance has a handsome doorway and window, and there are two side entrances; in the chancel are the bishop's throne and the stalls of the dean and chapter; and the interior contains several ancient monuments, with many of the 16th century and upwards.

On the north side are the remains of two roofless buildings, one of small dimensions, and the other 52 feet long and 22 feet wide, with a window of elegant design at its eastern extremity. Of the episcopal palace, which was repaired by Bishop Meredyth in 1589, there are no remains. About 100 yards from the west end of the church is the well of St. Laserian, formerly much resorted to; and in the church-yard is a stone supposed to have marked the boundary of the old borough. In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Leighlin-Bridge. About 80 children are taught in the parochial school, which is supported by donations from the dean and chapter, the incumbent, and the governors of the Foundling Hospital; and there are six private schools, in which are about 420 children. There are some chalybeate springs, which are used medicinally.

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