| CARRICK-on-SUIR, a market and post-town, and a parish, in the barony of IFFA and OFFA EAST, county of TIPPERARY, and province of MUNSTER, 13 miles (W. N. W.) from Waterford, and 78? (S. W. by S.) from Dublin; containing 7445 inhabitants, of which number, 6922 are in the town. This place formed part of the possessions of Theobald Butler, to whom were granted also the lands of Carrig-mac-Griffin, now Carrick-Beg, and whose grandson, Edmond, founded a castle here about the year 1309. The castle was, in 1336, granted by his son, James Butler, created Earl of Ormonde in1328, to the Franciscan friary of Carrick-Beg, which he had founded; and continued to form part of the endowment of that house till about the year 1445, hen, the brethren having suffered it to fall into ruin, a re-grant of it was purchased from them by Sir Edmond Butler Mac Richard, grandson of James, third Earl of Ormonde, who rebuilt both the castle and the bridge. A priory, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was founded here at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century, for Canons Regular of the order of St. Augustine, by William de Cantell and Dionisia his wife, daughter of Thomas Fitz-Anthony; it was afterwards subject to the hospital of St. John de Aeon, at London, and after the dissolution was granted to Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, in 1557, which grant was confirmed in 1562 by Queen Elizabeth, who also remitted the reserved rent. A castle was erected on the site of the priory by Thomas Duff, called Black Thomas, Earl of Ormonde. Here was also a nunnery for poor Clares, of which nothing more has been recorded. In 1500, the Earl granted a charter to the burgesses of the town, dated at Waterford. |
