TUMNA Toomna or Toemonia a parish in the barony of Boyle, co. Roscommon. Connaught. It extends along the right bank of the River Shannon, from a point 1¾ mile south of Lough Allen, to the immediate vicinity of Carrick on Shannon. It contains the village of Battle-Bridge: which see. Length, south-south westward 6¼ miles; breadth from 3/8 to 3; area, 9,188 acres, 3 roods, 13 perches, of which 77 acres, 2 roods, 13 perches are in small lakes, 730 acres, 27 perches are in the river Boyle and its lacustrine expansions, and 163 acres, 2 roods, 34 perches are in the river Shannon. Pop. in 1831, 4,451; in 1841, 4,180. Houses 738. Pop. of the rural districts in 184,1 4,033. Houses 714. The principal lacustrine expansion of the Boyle river within the parish is the comparatively large and intricate Lower Lough Oakport. The chief of the small lakes is Lough Shanballybaun, and lies north of Lough Oakport. The northern and narrow district of the parish is nearly all bog; and both this and the other districts are nearly all identical, in history, physical character and georgic condition, with the estate of Cootehall: see that article. The surface, in a general view, consists of hills chiefly of limestone gravel and abounding with good soils, interspersed through bogs; and by lowering some of the water-courses, and opening a free passage for the pent-up stagnant pools in the bogs, several hundred acres of valuable surface were brought into use during the few years preceding 1830, and were then producing corn, potatoes and meadow-grass, and sustaining the tread of cattle in places which, a brief period before no man could traverse without the risk of sinking to the arm-pits. In 1830, the re-claimed bog and marsh land was worth from 10s to 15s per acre a-year; and the sound ground on the hills was chiefly under oats and potatoes. “Flax,” said Mr. Weld in that year, “used to be grown here to a considerable extent, whilst the linen manufacture flourished, but the cultivation at present is very limited. Wheat is raised only in small quantities. The pastures were, to all appearance, very poor, and overrun with rag-weeds, owing to the mistaken practice which is so prevalent amongst the small farmers here, as well as in other parts of the country, of taking the utmost from the soil in successive crops of potatoes and grain, and then leaving it to throw up grasses naturally.” A considerable detached district of the parish of Ardcarne lies isolated in the centre of the parish of Tumna. The road from Carrick-on-Shannon to Boyle, and the roads from Battle-Bridge to Boyle and to Sligo, traverse the interior. A monastery for Dominican friars was founded at Tumna by O’Connor; and, by an inquisition in the 28th year of Queen Elizabeth, it was found to have passed into the possession of the friars of the third order of St Francis, and to be endowed with a church, a cemetery, a quarter of arable and pasture land, and the appurtenances and tithes adjacent to the friary valued at 10s a-year. - Tumna is a vicarage and part of the benefice of ARDCLARE [which see], in the dio. of Elphin. The vicarial and the rectorial tithes are each compounded for £70; and the latter are impropriate in Viscount Lorton. The Roman Catholic chapel is situated at Cootehall but the attendance upon it is not distinctly enough returned. In 1834, the Protestants amounted to 247, and the Roman Catholics to 4,475; and, in spite of the populousness of the parish there was no school.
From - The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland: 1846 Dublin: A Fullerton & Co.
