468 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



reign by the then prior, Sir John Eawson. The Hospital and its 

 lands remained in the possession of the Crown from 1542 onwards 

 during the reigns of Edward YI. and Queen Mary, and the priory 

 appears even thus early to have been utilised as a Yiceregal residence. 

 InWare's "Annals"^ the LordDeputy, Thomas Eadclylfe Viscount Fitz- 

 walter, is described as marching in 1557 with his forces " from the Hall 

 of Kilmainham, being the Lord Lieutenant's place of retire." But at the 

 close of the same year the priory was restored by Queen Mary, at the 

 instance of Cardinal Pole, to the Knights of St. John, one Oswald 

 Massingberd being installed as prior. Massingberd's tenure was neces- 

 sarily brief. On the accession of Elizabeth in the year following he fled 

 over seas, and Eitzwalter, returning to the Viceroyalty as Earl of Sussex, 

 resumed possession of the priory. Thereupon it was found expedient 

 to settle the title of the Crown on a clear basis, and accordingly by " An 

 Act for the restitution of the late priory or hospital of St. John's of 

 Jerusalem" the house and lands were declared to be "annexed to the 

 Imperial Crown of this realm- in the Queen's most royal person " in as 

 full a manner as before the patent to Sir Oswald Massingberd. 



The priory, or as it now began to be called, the castle of Kilmainham, 

 having considerably decayed since the original suppression of the 

 Knights of St. John by Henry YIII.,^ Elizabeth, deeming it a fit place 

 for the residence of the Chief Governors of Ireland, gave order for its 

 repair, and for the next thirty years it was so used by successive 

 deputies from Sir Henry Sidney to Sir William Fitzwilliam, though 

 the former, on his first arrival, finding the repairs inadequate, was 

 obliged to take refuge in the archiepiscopal palace of St. Sepulchre's.* 

 But after Fitzwilliam's departure in 1588, the hall or principal build- 

 ing was suffered to fall into woeful dilapidation, whilst its appurtenant 

 premises had already degenerated into hopeless ruin. A memorandum 

 drawn up in 1572 of " the decays of the Manor place of Kilmainham,^ 

 and of the mills and weirs there," shows the extent to which decay 

 had even then spread : St. John's Chui'ch being roofiess, St. Mary's 

 chapel being utilised as a stable and its steeple broken down, and 

 the fort by which the whole was defended presenting a complete 

 wreck. The mills and weirs of Kilmainham had also fallen into ruin, 



1 Ware's Annals, p. 142. 



2 Statute, 2 Elizabeth, Cap. 7. 



3 M.S. Annals of Dudley Loftus in Archbishop Marsh's Library. 

 * Cal. Irish State Papers, 1509-1573. 



5 Decays of the Manor Place of Kilmainham, Irish State Papers. 1572. 

 Record Office. 



