MacPhilpin 1880, Google Books scan of Harvard copy

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

from Dublin." And Kilcolman parish, of which Clare is the capital, he states, contained, in 1837, 8,400 souls, or nearly 1,700 (seventeen hundred) families—at present it contains only 1,300 families. The parish contains 22,886 statute acres. The remains of an old Carmelite convent are found here at Ballinsmala, within one mile and a half of Claremorris. According to Ware, by Harris, vol. ii., 283, the friary was founded in the thirteenth century by the Prendergasts—then owners of the lands in that district. According to an inquisition, held 12th May, 1608, the community possessed twelve acres of land. At the period of the dissolution of monasteries, this establishment and the lands annexed, were granted to Sir John King. The friars were banished; they managed, however, to live as best they could amongst the native Catholics, to whom they were devoted, and who, in turn, held the friars in great veneration. Some thirty-five years ago the friars celebrated Mass within those walls that are now in ruins at Ballinsmala.

Regarding the parish of Kilcolman, or Claremorris, one third of the land is arable, one fourth pasture; the remainder, over one third, is waste or a bog. The boundaries of Catholic and Protestant parishes are the same. The tenants have never been rich. The wealthiest is only so far above want, that one year or two of adverse times, like the present, are sufficient to induce all the privations that come in the train of poverty.

## Ballyhaunis.

Ballyhaunis, as well as Claremorris, is favourably situate on the line of the North-Western Railway. It is a rising town. It has two hotels. A growing rivalry exists at present between its inhabitants and those of Claremorris in the marked attention which they pay to visitors going to Knock, and to all tourists and strangers that pass by that way. Accord-