Kildalkey 2.15

Kildalkey or Kildalky is a village and a parish in the Barony of Lune, county and diocese of Meath, Ireland.PopulationThe population of the village was 137 at the time of the 1996 Census. By the 2002 Census the village had a massive 278% growth to 518. The population recorded from the 2011 Census shows Kildalkey has a population of 663, a 28% increase from 2006.HistoryThe patron saint is Saint Dymphna, to whom the Catholic church is dedicated. Designed by the architect W H Byrne, it was consecrated in 1898. The Protestant church, by the architect Joseph Welland (1798-1860), was consecrated in 1856 and was situated at Rathcormick, 2 miles west of the village. It was demolished in the 1960s. Christianity came to Kildalkey in the 5th century when St Mo-Luog founded a monastery there and the parish is mentioned in the Book of Kells. A section of the Pale runs through the parish.A castle (or tower-house) dating from c.1430, which was built by the Nugent family, is at Moyrath. There are twenty-one townlands, all of which are listed with their residents in Griffith's Valuation of 1854. These are: Balaghtalion, Ballynadrimna, Baskinagh Lower, Baskinagh Upper, Cloncarneel, Clonmore, Clonylogan, Corballis, Kildalkey Town, Lady Island, Moat Town, Moyrath, Neillstown, Portanab, Pubblestown, Rathcormick, Rathkeena, Shanco, Woodtown Abbot and Woodtown West. The following families are historically associated with the parish: Barnewall, Nangle, Nugent, and Potterton. The principal landlords in the parish were the Earls of Darnley although Speaker William Conolly and later Henry Grattan held Moyrath.