Falkixer — The Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, 285 



rectories of Kilmainham, Chapelizod, Ballyfermot, and Palmerston, 

 witli the altarages of these parishes, besides scores of lesser endow- 

 ments. But these valuable appanages of the Priory, though they 

 doubtless served to maintain the prestige of Kilmainham as the 

 wealthiest individual house of the Knights of St. John, formed but a 

 small part of the aggregate opulence of the Order in Ireland. For 

 affiliated to Kilmainham were numerous houses of lesser consequence, 

 but, withal, of considerable importance, which were spread through not 

 less than eight Irish counties, and which represented in every instance 

 the beneficence of Anglo-Norman patrons exercised in the twelfth 

 and thirteenth centuries, and in most cases within a few years of 

 Strongbow's coming. The list of the foundations of the Knights 

 Hospitallers given in Ware's " Antiquities"^ specifies no fewer than 

 twelve of these, viz.: — 



In County Kildare, the Preceptories of Kilbegs, Kilheel, and 

 Tully. 



In County Wexford, the Preceptory of St. John and St. Brigid at 



Wexford, founded by William Mareschall, Earl of Pembroke ; 



and the Preceptory of Ballyheuk. 

 In County Meath, the Preceptories of Kilmainham-beg and 



Kilmainham Wood. 

 In County Down, the Preceptory of St. John Baptist in the Ards, 



founded by Hugh Lacy. 

 In County Waterford, the Preceptory of Kilbarry.- 

 In County Cork, the Preceptory of Mourne. 

 In County Limerick, the Preceptory of Any. 

 In County Galway, the Preceptory of Kinelekin. 



These were houses numerous enough, with the endowments attached 

 to each, to give the Knights of St. John, even from the earliest 

 moment of their connexion with Ireland, a hold upon the countiy 

 such as must have enabled them to sustain on at least equal terms with 

 their rivals the Templars the authoritative position which the two 

 great military Orders asserted, almost from the moment of their origin, 

 in every country of mediaeval Europe. But the wealth and con- 

 sequence of the Hospitallers received an immense extension when, 

 shortly after the suppression of the Templars (whose overthrow 

 in England, Scotland, and Ireland, under Edward II, followed 



1 Harris's "Ware," ii., 271. 



- This, however, appears to have been originally a Templars' foundation. See 

 Appendix I., p. 314, i7ifra. 



