Clare Places: Parishes: Killard: Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, 1845

Killard

A parish 5 miles north-north-east of Kilkee, and on the coast of the barony of Ibrickane, Co. Clare, Munster. It contains the village of DOONBEG. Length, 8 miles;—breadth, 2; area, 17,022 acres, 1 rood, 1 perch, of which 183 acres, 3 roods, 3 perches are water. Pop. 1831, 5,629; in 1841, 6,941. Houses 1,094. Pop. of the rural districts, in 1831, 5,416; in 1841, 6,625. Houses 1,042. The coast extends southward from Lough Donnel to Farrihy bay; includes Doonbeg bay, Carronmore Point, Donegal Point, and Baltard or Ballard Point; is bold and precipitous, and partakes the grandly picturesque character which distinguishes the environs of KILKEE. A great proportion of the surface is unreclaimed and exceedingly wild bog, almost all of a kind quite capable of reclamation; and the rest consists for the most part of arable and pasture land, and, owing to the proximity of sea-manure, has, within the last few years, been greatly improved. The road from Kilkee to Ennistymon passes through the interior.—This parish is a vicarage, and a separate benefice, in the dio. of Killaloe. Vicarial tithe composition and gross income, £101 10s. 9¼d.; nett, £91 7s. 10¼d. Patron, the diocesan. The chief portion of the rectorial tithes is compounded for £79 2s. 3½d., and is impropriate in Lord Castlecoote; and the remainder is compounded for £2 19s. 7½d., and is impropriate in Richard Stackpoole, Esq. The church was built in 1833, by means of a gift of £900 from the late Board of First Fruits. Sittings 250; attendance 45. The Doonbeg and Baltard Roman Catholic chapels have an attendance of respectively 800 and 700; and, in the Roman Catholic parochial arrangement, are united to the chapels of Lisdeen and Kilkee. In 1834, the Protestants amounted to 104, and the Roman Catholics to 5,982; and 6 daily schools—one of which was aided with £2 a-year from the Roman Catholic clergyman—had on their books 250 boys and 160 girls.

The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, 1845
Courtesy of Clare Local Studies Project