Graveyard

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a natural hillock with a nearby river to the E. Tyone priory and hospital of St John the Baptist was a foundation of Augustinian Hospitallers or Fratres Cruciferi (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 208-9). The site was founded by Theobald Walter whose charter to the priory is usually dated c. 1200 (COD, vol. 1, 10). In 1541-2 Tyone Abbey was secularised and placed under the authority of a warden (Gleeson and Leask 1938, 215). The priory was dissolved in 1551 (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 208-9). At its dissolution, Thady O'Meara the last prior was in possession of the monastery, belfry, cemetery, water mill and various pieces of land (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 215). By 1553 Tyone and its estate was in the possession of Oliver Grace (ibid.). The abbey (TN021-042----) was constructed of roughly coursed limestone rubble and is now much altered and poorly preserved. It was an early thirteenth-century foundation as evidenced by the mouldings on some of the sandstone blocks. It was largely rebuilt in the late fifteenth/sixteenth century and a large quantity of cut sandstone was reused. The present remains consists of a simple rectangular church building the E end of which survives intact and a series of claustral buildings to the S of the church. Graveyard located immediately to S of church, the latter forming the N boundary of the graveyard.
According to a farmer with adjacent property this graveyard was 'cleaned up' c. 1992 by a local committee. The clean-up involved a JCB which removed a large quantity of stone. Amongst the loose stones still in the graveyard there is an engaged pillar with a capital of moulded sandstone of thirteenth-century date. The site appears to have consisted of an abbey church along the N range with domestic buildings on the E, S and W with a possible cloister now used as a graveyard in the centre. The site was described in 1840 by O'Donovan as an abbey in a dilapidated state of which survived the E gable, the N and S walls of the choir (L. 59ft 7in (18m); Wth 27ft 10in (8.5m); wall T 3ft 8in (1.2m)) along with the N wall of the nave and the crossing tower which divided the nave from the chancel (Gleeson 1915, vol. 1, 144). A pointed doorway in the crossing-tower gave access to a spiral staircase from which the first floor of the tower was accessed. There was a large pointed window in the E gable and a mural stairs in the S wall rising eastwards from which a gallery may have been accessed (ibid.). There is now no trace of the crossing tower with stairs or the mural stairs in the S wall.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien.

Date of upload: 22 September 2008

References

Curtis, E. (ed.) 1932 Calendar of Ormond Deeds 1172-1350 A.D. Vol. 1. Dublin. The Stationery Office.

Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R.N. 1970 (Reprint 1988) Medieval religious houses of Ireland. Dublin. Irish Academic Press.

Gleeson, Rev. J. 1915 (Reprint 1982, 2 vols. with intro. and biblio. by George Cunningham) History of the Ely O'Carroll territory or Ancient Ormond. Kilkenny. Roberts Books.

Gleeson, D.F. and Leask, H.G. 1938 The priory of St. John at Nenagh. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 69, 201-18.