Kilmainham adjoining the city of Dublin on the south side anciently called Kill Magnend. St. Magnendus was abbot of this monastery in the early part of the seventh century. He is said to be the son of Aidus, prince of Orgiel, who died AD 606. The name of St. Magnend occurs in the Irish calendars at the 18th of December.
Priory of Kilmainham under the invocation of St. John the Baptist was founded about the year 1174 for Knights Templar by Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, or Strigul. King Henry II confirmed his act. Hugh de Cloghall was the first prior.
AD 1205 Maurice de Prendergast was prior
AD 1231 John de Callan was prior
AD 1274 the prior William Fitz Roger was made a prisoner with several others by the Irish at Glendelory, when many of the friars were slain
AD 1301 William de Rosse was prior. He was also lord deputy of Ireland. In 1302, William was chief justice
AD 1307 Walter de Aqua was prior. In this year the Templars were everywhere seized. Gerald, fourth son of Maurice, lord of Kerry, was the last grand prior of that order in Ireland. In the space of one hundred and twenty six years during their institution to the time in which the order was suppressed, the Knights Templar were in possession of 16,000 lordships. Their lands and possessions of every kind were bestowed on the knights of St. John of Jerusalem by the Pope, the king confirming the grant. In England many of the knights Templar were committed to monasteries with a daily allowance to each of four pence and to the grand master of two shillings daily, the chaplains were allowed three pence daily and to their servants the sum of two pence were given and for this allowance they were to perform the former services they had before done for the Templars, while their lands were in their possession. It is probable that the same mode of treatment was adopted in Ireland by the ministers of the crown.
This priory, which was granted to the knights of the order of St. John, became an hospital for the reception of guests and strangers, totally excluding the sick and infirm who had admission before this change. It became exempt from all ordinary jurisdiction.
AD 1315 William de Ross was probably the first prior
AD 1316 Roger Outlaw was prior
AD 1321 Roger Outlaw the prior was lord chancellor of Ireland
AD 1327 Roger continued prior and lord chancellor
AD 1328 Roger was accused of heresy by Richard Ledred bishop of Ossory. On enquiry made he was honorably acquitted
AD 1333 Roger was prior
AD 1340 Roger was prior and chancellor. He died this year, is recorded as an upright and prudent man who, by care and the especial favor and license of the king, had procured many lands churches and rents for his order
AD 1340 John Marshall succeeded as prior
AD 1341 John le Archer was prior and lord chancellor of Ireland
AD 1349 John continued in his offices
AD 1479 James Keating was prior. In consequence of maladministration, he was deprived by the grand master of Rhodes Peter Daubussen, who appointed Marmaduke Lomley, an Englishman of a noble family, to succeed. Having landed at Clontarf, a commandery of the order, Keatinge hastened thither with a body of armed men, took Lomley prisoner and detained him in close confinement until he had resigned all the instruments of his election and confirmation. Lomley protesting against the violence that was offered to his person. An account of those violent proceedings being forwarded to the king and to the grand master at Rhodes. Keating enraged at the sentence of excommunication which was pronounced against himself, expelled Lomley from the commandery of Kilsaran, which he had before assigned him, and threw him into prison, accusing the unfortunate Lomley as the cause of those troubles. The archbishop of Armagh strenuously but in vain strove to liberate him. Lomley died, as appears in an act of the tenth of Henry VII, of a broken heart. Keatinge was at length dislodged having kept forcible possession of the hospital until 1491 and ended his factious life, as is supposed, in the most abject poverty and contempt. Keating, having alienated the property of the hospital, it was enacted in 1494 that all persons who should have in their custody any of the holy cross jewel or ornament belonging to the priory, pledged by Keating, it should be restored to the present James Wall, who was directed to pay the money for which the relics were sold or pledged
AD 1496 Sir Richard Talbot was prior, was displaced in the year by the grand master
AD 1498 Robert Evers was prior removed in 1591 by the same
AD 1535 Sir John Rawson the prior surrendered to the royal King Henry VIII. Sir John was created viscount of Clontarf, a pension of five hundred marcs from the estate of the hospital
AD 1557 The prior of the hospital was, by authority of Cardinal the Pope's legate, whose mother the countess of Salisbury King Henry VIII sent to the block, restored to his former possessions, the Queen having confirmed the act under the great seal
Sir Oswald Massingberd was made prior who, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, withdrew from the kingdom. The priory of Kilmainham, at the dissolution, was one of the most and elegant structures in the kingdom. By an inquisition the thirty-second of Henry VIII, the hospital had three gardens and an orchard within the walls, four towers erected on those walls, three other gardens and an orchard and two hundred and sixty acres of arable land. Parcels of its possessions were granted to the burgesses and commonalty of the town of Athenry in the county of Galway, another to Anthony Deering, the twentieth of Queen Elizabeth, to hold forever at the annual rent of 16s Irish money, and again in the thirty-sixth of that good Protestant queen, a grant was made to William Browne to hold to him and to his heirs forever in free soccage at the annual rent of 57 10s
