Kilmessan

KILMESSAN, a parish, in the barony of Lower-Deece, county of Meath, and province of Leinster, 5 miles (N. W.) from Dunshaughlin, on the road to Bective-bridge; containing 812 inhabitants, of which number, 146 are in the village, which contains 25 houses.  It comprises 3184 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act. Swainstown, the seat of the Rev. Mr. Preston, is a handsome residence in an extensive and well-planted demesne.

The living, is a vicarage, in the diocese of Meath, united episcopally, in 1828, to the chapelry of Macetown, and in the patronage of the Marquess of Drogheda, in whom the rectory is impropriate. The tithes amount to £225, of which £50 is payable to the impropriator, and the remainder to the vicar; and the gross value of the benefice, tithe and glebe inclusive, is £321. There is a glebe-house, with a glebe of 12½ acres, valued at £28 per annum. The church, which was built in 1731, is a neat structure, for the repair of which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have recently granted £297. In the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union or district of Dunsany, and has a handsome chapel at Kilmessan. Here is a public school, in which about 150 children are educated.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.