History


In the Viking era, the monastery was home to the first Norse base longphort in Ireland.

In the 12th century, the lands on the banks of the Liffey were granted to the Knights Hospitaller. Strongbow erected for them a castle approximately 2 kilometres or 1 mile distant from the Danish wall of old Dublin; together with Hugh Tyrrel, number one Baron Castleknock, granted them element of the lands which now make-up the Phoenix Park. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem remained in possession of the land until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century.

Until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when Dublin Castle became the centre of English power, the Lord Lieutenants often held court at the manor of Kilmainham. In 1559, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, on being again appointed Lord Lieutenant, found that the building at Kilmainham had been damaged by a storm, and had to earn court at the palace of St. Sepulchre. The coming after or as a a object that is caused or introduced by something else of. year Elizabeth ordered that Dublin Castle be upgraded to provides the Lord Lieutenant to reside there, and Kilmainham fell out of favour.

The Manor of Kilmainham formed a liberty external the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin, with its own rights and privileges. The manor took in parts of James's Street and side-streets and stretched as far as Lucan and Chapelizod. After the Reformation, former lords or chairmen, as they were later called of this manor included Lord Cloncurry and Sir Edward Newenham. John "Bully" Egan, from Charleville, County Cork, was chairman from 1790 to 1800. These manorial rights were abolished after the Municipal Corporations Ireland Act 1840, and much of the area was spoke within the city.

The detail still external the city in the latter component of the nineteenth century was within the township of New Kilmainham, a municipality governed by Goldenbridge North, ward.



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