Killwaughter Castle

Killwaughter Castle, County Antrim Photo © Kenneth Allen, 26 August 2006

Killwaughter Castle Outbuilding Photo © Donna Glasgow, 7 October 2006

KILWAUGHTER, a parish, in the union of Larne, barony of Upper Glenarm, county of Antrim, and province of Ulster, 1 mile (W. S. W.) from Larne, on the road to Ballymena; containing 2164 inhabitants. This parish comprises 9803 statute acres, of which 115 are under water; about one-third is arable, and a very large portion mountain and waste land, particularly Agnew Hill, which has an elevation of 1558 feet above the level of the sea. The lands near Kilwaughter Castle are in a high state of cultivation; there is some bog, and limestone and basalt are abundant. The castle, the elegant mansion of the Agnew family, proprietors of nine-tenths of the parish, is situated within a beautiful and extensive demesne: in the plantation above the house is a place called Dhu Hole, a fissure in the lime-stone rock, into which falls a river that is no where seen again till it enters Lough Larne. There are extensive cotton and spinning mills in the parish, that employ nearly 1000 persons; linen-cloth is woven in some parts. The parish is a rectory, in the diocese of Connor, forming part of the union and corps of the prebend of Carncastle in the cathedral of Connor. A perpetual curacy was lately instituted, called the curacy of Carncasflc and Kilwaughter, which is endowed with a portion of the tithe rent-charge of the latter parish, amounting to £45. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners recommend, that on the next avoidance the united parishes and rectories of Kilwaughter and Carncastle become a distinct benefice, the perpetual curacy to be absorbed therein. The church is at Carncastle; the glebe (in this parish), as also the glebe-house, was purchased by the late Board of First Fruits, in 1513. There is a small Roman Catholic chapel at Craiganorn. £50 Irish were bequeathed to the poor of the parish by Mr. H. Crawford, and are now under charge of the Board of Charitable Bequests. Some slight remains exist of the old church, in the castle demesne.

Reference

A Topographical Dictionary Ireland by Samuel Lewis, 1847