HURLEY, Rev. T. Canon. St. Patrick and the Parish of Kilkeevan (Co. Roscommon). Volume 1, all published. Illustrated. Dublin: Dollard, 1943. Octavo. pp. xxvii, 618. Black cloth, titled in gilt, with gilt motif of St. Patrick on both covers. Ex lib with neat stamp. A very good copy. Scarce.

Patrick next went from Cruachan into the place which the Tripartite calls Tir Cairedo, and Tirechan Magh Cairetha; but it is evidently the same name. It is about eight miles west of Cruachan, and lay around the modern town of Castlerea. In this plain Patrick founded a church near the place called Ard-lice, and he left therein Deacon Coemhan. From him the church came to be called Kilkeevan; and the parish naturally took its title from the church. The old church was little more than a mile from Castlerea, to the west, and its ruins, or rather its site, in the old churchyard may still be seen, near the mansion of O’Conor Don, at Clonalis. Of Deacon Coemhan himself, we know nothing else; but the epithet would seem to imply that he had been a deacon in the religious family of Patrick, and he is described as a youth dear to God and to Patrick. The name is Irish, and it may be that he was in some way connected with the district. The modern parish of Castlerea is, properly speaking, the parish of Kilkeevan, and, as such, is set down in all the parochial registers of the diocese of Elphin, of which it forms the most westerly district. It was also called Sen-domnach, being the oldest church of the place; but that name has disappeared from the memory of the people.

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