Cashel Parishes

The city is comprised within the parishes of St. John the Baptist and St. Patrick's Rock; the former containing 5207, and the latter 9454, statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act. The living of St. John's is a rectory entire, united time immemorially to the entire rectory of Ballyclerihan and the rectory and vicarage of Coleman, together constituting the corps of the deanery of Cashel, in the diocese of Cashel, and in the patronage of the Crown. The tithes of the parish amount to £341. 5. 10., and of the union to £483. 9. 4.; the glebe comprises 100 acres at Deans-grove, and there is also a glebe of 11 acres in Ballyclerihan, but no deanery or glebe-house. Besides several tenements, the lands belonging to the dean comprise 203 ½ acres, let on lease at a rent of £58 and annual renewal fines of £40; the gross annual revenue of the deanery, including tithes and lands, as returned by the Commissioners, amounts to £625.

The church, erected on the site of a former edifice and completed in the year 1783, is a handsome and spacious structure of stone, with a lofty spire of good proportions, and serves both for the cathedral and the parochial church: the result of a survey made by Archbishop Agar having proved the old cathedral church to be incapable of restoration, the two were consolidated by act of council in 1749, and a portion of the economy fund of the cathedral was appropriated to the erection of this church, and lately towards keeping it in repair; and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have also recently made a grant of £138. 18. 6. for repairing it.

The living of St. Patrick's Rock is a rectory and vicarage, the rectory appropriate to the economy fund of the cathedral church, and the vicarage to that of the vicars choral; the tithes amount to £701. 5. 9., of which £362. 5. 8. belongs to the former, and £339. 0. 1. to the latter. In the R. C. divisions the two parishes form the union or district called Cashel, which is the union or parish of the Dean. The chapel of St. John's, situated in Friar-street, is a spacious and elegant structure, now undergoing extensive alteration and repair, including the erection of a spire; it is faced with hewn stone, and, when completed, will be very ornamental to the city. Behind it is a convent of nuns of the order of the Presentation; and there is another chapel at Rosegreen, in the parish of St. Patrick's Rock. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists, a neat building situated in the Main-street, and erected by subscription on a site granted at a nominal rent by W. Pennefather, Esq., in which part of the old prison built by Edward I. was incorporated; it was opened for divine service on the 2nd of July, 1833.

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