Meelick

MEELICK, a parish, in the barony of GALLEN, county of MAYO, and province of CONNAUGHT, 4 miles (N. W.) from Swinford, on the road to Castlebar; containing 3493 inhabitants. This parish is bounded by the river Moy on the north-west, and by the Geesten on the south-west, and comprises 7843 statute acres of good arable and pasture land, with some bog. The land is principally in tillage, and the system of agriculture improving. Here is a coal mine, not worked at present; there are very fine stone quarries, the produce of which is used both for building and repairing the roads. The principal seats are Oldcastle, the residence of J. Bolingbroke, Esq.; and Newcastle, of A. C. O'Malley, Esq.

It is a vicarage, in the diocese of Achonry, forming part of the union of Kilconduff; the rectory is impropriate in the representatives of the late Roger Palmer, Esq. The tithes amount to £246. 14. 7., one-half of which is payable to the impropriator, and the other to the vicar. In the R. C. divisions it is part of the union or district of Kilconduff; the chapel was built in 1835, on an acre of ground given as a site by J. Bolingbroke, Esq.; attached to it is a school. There are two private schools, in which are about 700 children. The celebrated round tower of Meelick is perfect, with the exception of the roof, and is in a state of good preservation. In the Oldcastle demesne is a well, the water of which is impregnated with sulphur and iron, and is efficacious in scorbutic cases. Numerous gold and silver coins, of the reigns of the Edwards and Henrys, have been discovered here from time to time.

from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.