a town of Ireland, and capital of a county of the same name, is situated 28 miles southwest of Dublin. It is governed by a sovereign, recorder, and two portreeves. The church of Kildare was very early erected into a cathedral with episcopal jurisdiction, which dignity it retains to this day; the cathedral, however, has been for several years neglected, and at present is almost in ruins. St Brigid founded a nunnery at Kildare, which afterwards came into the possession of the regular canons of St Augustin; this saint died 1st February 523, and was interred here; but her remains were afterwards removed to the cathedral church of Down. In the year 638, Aod Dubh or Black Hugh king of Leinster abdicated his throne, and took on him the Augustinian habit in this abbey; he was afterwards chosen abbot and bishop of Kildare, and died on the 10th May. In 756, Eglitigin the abbot, who was also bishop of Kildare, was killed by a priest as he was celebrating mass at the altar of St Brigid; since which time no priest whatsoever was allowed to celebrate mass in that church in the presence of a bishop. In 1220 Henry de Loundres archbishop of Dublin put out the fire called inextinguishable, which had been preserved from a very early time by the nuns of St Brigid. This fire was however lighted, and continued to burn till the total suppression of monasteries. Here was also a Gray abbey on the south side of the town, erected for friars of the Franciscan order, or, as they were more generally called, Gray friars, in the year 1260, by Lord William de Vesey; but the building was completed by Gerald Fitzmaurice, Lord Offaley. A considerable part of this building yet remains, which appears not to have been of very great extent. A house for White friars was likewise founded in this town by William de Vesey in 1290; the round tower here is 130 feet high, built of white granite to about 12 feet above the ground, and the rest of common blue stone. The pedestal of an old cross is still to be seen here; and the upper part of a cross lies near it on the ground. The number of inhabitants is stated at 36,000.

a county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, which is 37 miles in length and 20 in breadth; Kildare breadth; and is bounded on the east by Dublin and Wicklow, on the West by King's and Queen's counties, on the north by Earl Meath, and on the south by Carlow. It is a fine arable country, well watered by the Barrow, Liffey, and other rivers, and well inhabited and cultivated, containing 228,590 Irish plantation acres, 100 parishes, 10 baronies, and 4 boroughs. The chief town is of the same name, and gave title of earl to the noble family of Fitzgerald. It was anciently called Chilledair, i.e., "the wood of oaks," from a large forest which comprehended the middle part of this county; in the centre of this wood was a large plain, sacred to heathen superstition, and at present called the Curragh of Kildare; at the extremity of this plain, about the commencement of the 6th century, St Brigid, one of the heathen vestals, on her conversion to the Christian faith, founded, with the assistance of St Conlath, a church and monastery; near which, after the manner of the Pagans, St Brigid kept the sacred fire in a cell, the ruins of which are still visible.