‘JOHN, Lord of Ireland and Earl of Morton, to all justices, barons, &c., as well French as English, Welsh and Irish, and all other liege men of Ireland, greeting. Know ye, that, for the love of God, and for the salvation of my own and the souls of my predecessors and successors, I have granted and given, and by these presents do grant and give, to God and the blessed Mary of the Holy Cross, and to the Cistertian Monks serving God there, in free, pure, and perpetual alms, the under-written lands, as fully and freely as Domuald O’Brien, King of Lymberick, gave and granted, and by this charter confirmed to the Cistertian Monks of the Holy Cross; to wit: Kelkaterlamunu, Ballydubal, Ballyidugin, Ballygirryr, Ballymyoletobin, and Ballytheloth, Gardath, Ballaschelagh, Balythougal et Ithologin. These lands I have given for the salvation of my soul, and those of my predecessors and successors, and for the souls of my soldiers who lie there, to enjoy peaceably, with all liberties and free customs, without any secular exactions in fields, ways, forests, fisheries, &c. I have also granted that they shall be free from all mulcts in my courts, for what cause soever they shall be amerced, and also free of all toll whatever; they shall sell or buy, for their own use, throughout my land of Normandy, England, Wales, and Ireland; and that their lands be not put in plevine.--Witnesses, a Bishop of Ferns; John de Courcy, de Angulo, Riddel, Chancellor, and David of Wales.’”
It appears also that in 1233 the above charter of King John was confirmed by King Henry III, who took this monastery into his protection, which protection he again renewed in 1234; and that it was again confirmed by King Richard II. in 1395, and that in 1414, James Earl of Ormond, and the Lord Deputy Thomas le Botiller or Butler, prior of St John of Jerusalem, further granted the protection of the crown to this house.
Thus protected and fostered by royalty, the Abbey of the Holy Cross became one of the most magnificent and wealthy in the kingdom, and its mitred abbot was styled Earl of Holy Cross, the lands belonging to the abbey constituting an earldom. He was also a baron of parliament, and usually vicar-general of the Cistertian order in Ireland. The abbey was originally a daughter of the Abbey of Maig, or Monaster-Nenagh, in the county of Limerick, and was subjected to that of Furnes in Lancashire by the Abbot of Clarevaux, in a general chapter of the order in 1249. After the dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland, Holy Cross Abbey with its appurtenances was granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1563 to Gerald Earl of Ormond, _in capite_, at the annual rent of £15, 10s. 4d.; and we believe this constitutes at present the estate, by purchase, of a worthy and deeply learned fellow of Trinity College, namely, Dr Wall.