Religious of the Parish

Carrigtwohill's Parish Origins

Kilcurfin & Templecurraheen

The ancient ruins of Kilcurfin church, more commonly known today as Templecurraheen are still visible. Yet, its origins are perplexing to say the least, with its name possibly being derived from the ancient Irish of Cill Coraichín for "Church of the Little Swamp". Similarly, Templecurraheen, could be derived from Teampallcurrachin meaning ‘church of the small bog’, or ‘church on a small patch of boggy land’. Both definitions being almost alike.

In-fee is defined as of an estate in land, inherited or owned by one who has the absolute right to dispose it as they desire, including the right to select an inheritor of the land. Although there is no surviving evidence to support the theory that Kilcurfin was granted to Philip de Barry circa 1183-1185, it is conceivably very plausible. Its intervening history when these lands eventually formed a fee of Carrigtohill Manor is unclear, before finally being fully absorbed into the Parish St David, many years later, with Kilcurfin falling into ruins.

Rev Brady’s next record is not for another two hundred years, 1524, with Edward (Edmond) Tyrry as Catholic Vicar for the parish of ‘Carrigtowil’. Although Henry VIII had been a devout Catholic in his younger years, and had defended the Pope against Martin Luther Protestantism, in 1534, Henry declared that he, not the Pope, was the head of the Church in England.

In Charles Smith’s ‘The Antient and Present State of the County and City of Cork, Vol I, 1701, he advises us that Kilcurfin, was a particle belongs to the Prebend (portion of revenues of a cathedral or collegiate church formerly granted to a canon or member of the chapter as his stipend) of Killenemer (Killeenemer), a Townland between Fermoy and Mitchelstown, with Rectory Tithes belonging to Col. Carew. More than one hundred years later Nicholas Carlisle, a Fellow and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London, published his ‘Topographical Directory of Ireland’ in 1810, sated Carrigtohill a village was:

“valued in the King’s Book at £2, sterling, and united by Act of Council, from the most distant time, to the particle of Kilcurfin.” He goes on to declare there was no Glebe House, but the Glebe of nine acres was near the old church of Kilcurfin.

In the ‘Miscellaneous Papers: Ireland, 21 April – 23 November 1820’, for the so-called Establish Church created by the Act of Union, 1800, that in ‘Carrigtohill’ there was a Church in repair, but there was no Glebe House, ‘but one is going to be built immediately, on a glebe of 12 acres, lately purchased. A small glebe at Kilcurfin,’ and that ‘The Curate’s salary was 50l., who resided ‘in the adjoining parish.’

Carrigtwohill or Charruig Thuaithil