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elegant seats and fine demesnes, among which are Oak-
lands, the seat of Col. Sankey; Talbot Hall, of J.
Hyacinth Talbot, Esq.; Macmurrough, of Chas. Tot-
tenham, Esq., part of an estate which had been the
ancient property of Dermod Mac Murrough, King of
Leinster; Woodville, of Edw. Tottenham, Esq.; Mary-
ville, of J. Talbot, Esq.; Stokestown, of Josh. Deane,
Esq.; and Rosemount, the property of the Misses
Rossiter. The approaches to the town from the north
and east have been lately much improved by the for-
mation of two roads, by which the steep ascents from
those points are avoided. The living is a vicarage, in
the diocese of Ferns, united by act of council, in 1768,
with the rectories of St. Mary’s Old Ross, Carnagh,
Tulleraght, Ballyane, and Clonleigh, and the impropriate
cures of Kilscanlan and Ballybrazill, the whole form-
ing the union of New Ross, in the patronage of the
Bishop; the rectory is impropriate in the corporation
of Kilkenny. The tithes amount to £330.3. 8½., of
which £220. 2. 5¾. is payable to the corporation of
Kilkenny, and £110. 1. 2¾ to the vicar: the whole
tithes of the benefice amount to £1152. 17. 4½. In
the town are a few scattered plots of building ground,
called glebes, none of Which is of sufficient size for the
site of a glebe-house and offices. The church, dedicated to
St. Mary, is a light and commodious edifice, rebuilt on
part of the site of the former edifice, and completed in
1813, partly by a loan of £2400 from the late Board of
First Fruits: it stands in a very conspicuous situation
on the side of the hill; the tower, on which a spire was
intended to be built, is rather low: the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners have granted £390 for its repair. It
contains an organ, presented by the corporation, and in
the chancel are three handsome mural monuments,
erected to the memory of the father of the late Chas.
Tottenham, Esq., and two of his family. A neat free
church, or chapel of ease, is now being erected by sub-
scription at the southern end of the town, on a site pre-
sented by Chas. Tottenham, Esq., of Ballycurry. In the
R. C. divisions the parish comprises the whole of St.
Mary’s parish, including the town and its suburbs on
the eastern side of the river. The chapel, in South-
street, is a spacious and elegant structure with large
pointed windows and faced with granite. A chapel
belonging to a community of Augustinian friars, con-
sisting of four members, stands on the hill near the site
of an ancient friary of the same order: and on the
summit of the hill overlooking the town is a convent
of Carmelite nuns, a branch of that at Ranelagh, Dublin,
which was removed hither in 1817, and has also a neat
chapel. The Wesleyan Methodists and the Society of
Friends have each a place of worship; the Primitive Me-
thodists meet in the court-house; and a society deno-
minating themselves simply Christian Brethren have a
neat place of worship recently erected by subscription,
in Priory-lane.
The grammar school was founded in 1713 by Sir John
Ivory, Knt. who bequeathed his mansion, offices, and
gardens to the corporation and vicar of St. Mary’s in
trust for the maintenance of a master to instruct four
poor boys, the sons of parents of the Established Church,
in Latin, and Greek: the school-house is a handsome
and commodious building, re-erected with suitable offi-
ces, in 1791, at the expense of the corporation, and is
capable of accommodating a considerable number of
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boarders and day-scholars. The school of the Friends
of Education, built in 1799 by subscription, consists
of a central structure and two wings, containing schools
for each sex and apartments for the teachers; it is aided
by a legacy of £3. 3. 0. per ann. by the late Mrs. Paul,
and another of £10 per ann. Irish, chargeable on a
farm called Creken, durin g the existing lease, bequeathed
by the late Mr. John Hughes: an infants’ school, capa-
ble of affording instruction to 100 children, has been
lately established in connection with this school. Con-
tiguous to the R. C. chapel are spacious school-rooms
for 300 boys, who are instructed on the Lancasterian
plan. The ladies of the Carmelite convent superintend
a large female school, which receives an annual grant
of £25 from the Board of National Education. An
institution, called the College, for the preparation of can-
didates for the R. C. priesthood, has been converted into
a private classical seminary, conducted by the Augus-
tinian friars. In these schools are about 330 boys and
260 girls; and there are nine private schools, in which
are about 300 pupils, and two Sunday schools. The
charitable institutions are numerous. The Trinity hos-
pital, founded by a bequest of Thos. Gregory, gent., and
incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, consists of six houses
in Priory-street for the accommodation of 14 poor
women, each of whom has two rooms and an annual
allowance of £18. 1. The Fever hospital, founded by the
late H. Houghton, of Ballyane, Esq., and completed by
bis widow in 1809, is built in an airy and commanding
situation. The infirmary for chronic diseases was built
by Grand Jury presentment in 1820. A dispensary
is attached to the fever hospital, and the three institu-
tions are under the management of a committee of 12
Protestants and 12 Catholics, of which the Protestant
vicar of St. Mary’s and the parish priest, being in right
of their offices trustees to the bequest, are always mem-
bers. The funds arise from a rent-charge of £300 per
ann. on the Ballyane estate, the bequest of the founder;
£5 per ann. bequeathed by Mrs. Paul; one of four bridge
debentures, value £20 per ann., by the late C. Tottenham,
Esq.; two bridge debentures, value £10 per ann., by the
late Misses Cliffe, of Bath; a Grand Jury presentment
of about £400, and about £50 per ann. subscriptions:
the average annual expenditure of the whole institution
is £770. The vicar’s almshouse provides lodging and
sustenance for three poor Protestant widows from an
endowment from the glebe of £5. 16. 10½. per ann., a
legacy of £10 per ann. from C. Tottenham, Esq., and
another of £5 per ann. from the late Lord Callen. The
Lying-in hospital, founded in 1809, has accommodations
for six patients; and a repository, opened in 1805 to
supply poor married women during the period of their
confinement with suitable comforts and attendance, is
supported by the sale of ladies’ work presented to the
Society. An Industry Society, formed about ten years
since, and aided by a contribution from the British and
Irish Ladies’ Society in London, gives employment to
poor females chiefly in spinning and knitting. The
Charitable Loan, instituted in 1809, for advancing sums
of from one to five pounds, free of interest, to industri-
ous tradesmen and artisans, has issued nearly 8000 loans
without suffering any loss. The Leslie Comfort Loan,
for the similar purpose of loans not to exceed one guinea
each, arose from donations of £100 each from Col. Leslie
and Wm. Wigram, Esq., to the corporation, on being