Straboe

STRABOE, a parish, in the barony of MARYBOROUGH EAST, QUEEN'S county, and province of LEINSTER, 2¾ miles (S. E.) from Mountmellick, on the road from Portarlington to Maryborough; containing 2176 inhabitants.

The parish, which is situated near the river Onas, and watered by one of its tributary streams, comprises 5335 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act: the land is generally productive, and limestone of good quality is quarried for agricultural and other uses.

The principal seats are Shara House, the residence of T. Kemmis, Esq.; Eyne House, of Capt. R. Lavers; Straboe, of the Rev. T. Kemmis; Derry, of J. Baldwin, Esq.; and Knocknagrove, of M. Dillon, Esq.: at Shara is a foundry, and there is a constabulary police station at the Heath. It is a vicarage, in the diocese of Leighlin, forming part of the union of Maryborough; the rectory is impropriate in - Lewis, Esq. The tithes amount to £300, of which £200 is payable to the impropriator, and £100 to the vicar. In the R. C, divisions the parish forms part of the union of Maryborough; there are some remains of the ancient parish church, and a well held in much esteem, near which are the walls of a castellated mansion, erected on the site of the ancient castle of Morett, one of the fortresses originally built by Lord Mortimer, and held for many ages by the Fitzgeralds against the O'Mores. The present remains have a stack of chimneys on each side-wall and gable, with a turret at one of the angles; but the interior is wholly destroyed. About 200 yards to the south, beyond a rivulet that runs through a small valley, is a building apparently an ancient chapel. Shara castle, in this parish, called formerly Lion, or Shelaw castle, was, in 1397, the head of a manor belonging to Sir Robt. Preston; it was besieged and taken by the insurgents in the war of 1641, and in the following year surrendered to Sir Chas. Coote, from whom it was retaken by Owen Roe O'Nial in 1646 and finally surrendered, in 1650, to Cols. Reynolds and Hewson, by whom it was demolished; the few remains that existed were wholly removed some few years since.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.