DONABATE, or DONAGHBATE, a parish, in the barony of BALROTHERY, county of DUBLIN, and province of LEINSTER, 8 miles (N. by E.) from Swords ; containing 386 inhabitants, of which number, 221 are in the village. This parish, which comprises 2366 statute acres, is situated on the eastern coast, near the inlets of Malahide and Rogerstown, and on the proposed line of the Grand Northern Trunk railway from Dublin to Drogheda, for which an act has been obtained. An extensive vein of green and white porphyry runs through it from east to west: the surrounding soil is limestone gravel and conglomerate grit.
Contiguous to the village is Newbridge, the extensive demesne of Charles Cobbe, Esq. The house, which is a noble mansion, was erected by Archbishop Cobbe, about 1730, and contains several valuable paintings by the old masters, which were collected on the continent by the Rev. M. Pilkington, author of the Dictionary of Painters, who was vicar of this parish; the drawing-room contains several of the paintings described by him. Near this mansion is Turvey, the property of Lord Trimleston.
There is a martello tower near the shore, and a constabulary police force is stationed in the village.
The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Dublin, episcopally united from time immemorial to the vicarage of Portrahan, or Portrane; the rectory is impropriate in the Rev. W. Hamilton and his heirs. The tithes amount to £220, of which £133. 6 shillings 8 pence is payable to the impropriator, £66. 13 shillings 4 pence to the vicar, and £20 to the economy estate of St. Patrick's cathedral, Dublin, as the rectorial tithes of the merged parish of Kilcreagh. The glebe-house was built in 1810, by aid of a gift of £100 and a loan of £320 from the late Board of First Fruits; and there is a glebe of nine acres, for which a rent of £29 per annum is paid. The church stands in a commanding situation, and contains a handsome marble monument to the memory of Dr. Cobbe, Archbishop of Dublin, who died in 1765: contiguous to the ancient tower is a ruined chapel, in which are several sepulchral monuments of the Barnewall family, the oldest of which is of the 16th century : the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have recently granted £184; 7shillings 6 pence for the repairs of the church.
In the R. C. divisions, this parish is the head of a union or district, comprising also Portrane, where the chapel is situated. On a commanding situation in the demesne of Newbridge are the remains of the ancient castle of Lanistown, and about a mile from the village are the ruins of Kilcreagh church.
