Ballinvally and Kiltennell
is in the
Electoral Division of Kyle, in Civil Parish of Kiltennell,
in the Barony of Idrone
East, in
the County of Carlow The Irish name for
Ballinvally and Kiltennell is Baile an Bhealaigh
agus Cill tSinill Ballinvally and Kiltennell is
on Logainm.ie: Ballinvally
and Kiltennell.
Kiltennel, "Cill-Senchill"
means "the Church of St. Senchill! Two saints
of this name flourished in the 6th century at
Killeigh, King's County, one styled Sinchell,
senior, an Abbot, the other Senchill junior, a
Bishop. The Patron is celebrated in Kiltennel on
the 15th of June, that day being the feast day
of Bishop Sennill, proves that he was the
titular saint of the place.
The old parochial
church is in ruins, as is the extension which
was added on at the beginning of the 18th
century. Within the wall lies an ancient
Baptismal font, round and pierced in the centre,
these stone reservoirs are an indication that it
had been a Roman Catholic place of worship.
In Ryan's History
of Carlow 1833 the architecture in Kiltennel was
described as the "coarsest architecture?
The following is
an extract from Samuel Lewis's Topographical
Dictionary of 1837 about Kiltennel, giving some
idea as to the way it was then:- "containing
3.206 inhabitants. It comprises 1,826 statute
acres as applotted under the tithe act and is in
a wild district bordering on Mount Leinster, the
living is a vicarage in the dioceses of Lelghlin,
and in the patronage of the Bishop; the rectory
is impropriate in Lord Cloncurry. The tithes
amount to £?85 of which £250 is payable to the
impropriator, and £135 to the vicar. The church,
which is in Killedmond is a neat building. There
are a parochial and a national school in which
280 children are educated; and two private
schools in which are about 200 children? There
is a holy well called "Tober-Modalamhan? St.
Magdalen's Well about a quarter of a mile from
the old church.
Among those
buried in Kiltennel is a Lieutenant Stones who
was killed by the insurgents in 1798, Tombstone
No. 12. The oldest of the monumental
inscriptions readable are those of James Cudhey,
Tombstone No. 75 dated 1710, and Captain Edmond
Byrne, Tombstone No. 71 dated 1712. The year of
the consecration of the chapel by Dr. Edmund
Byrne Archbishop of Dublin in 1709, gives an
indication of how old this cemetery and ruins
are.
Source:
Clonagoose Tombstone Inscriptions published in 1985
by St. Mullins Muintir na Tire in [St. Mullins,
Ireland].
Kiltennel
Headstones
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