TYONE ABBEY - (Tigh Eoin, Teach Eoin)

Tyone Priory or the Priory of St John the Hospitaller (Teacheon = John's House), is situated on a small hillock and overlooks Abhainn Cathbad or as it's known these days....Nenagh River. It was founded by Theobald Walter and dates from 1200. The Priory was a foundation of Augustinian Hospitallers or Fratres Cruciferi. it held 13 beds for the ill and infirm. Each patient was allotted a daily allowance of a good loaf, a plentiful bowl of ale from the cellar and a dish of meat from the kitchen.

Partial walls of the Church, constructed from rubble infill still remain and stand within the walls of the surrounding graveyard. The Priory was burned and 5 canons were murdered by Donald O'Kennedy in 1432.

The Priory, Hospital and Mill were closed in 1552 and the lands of over 700 acres were confiscated and awarded to Oliver Grace for a yearly rent of  £38 15s & 10d. With this closure and suppression of the Priory as indeed with any religious house, the safety net which provided alms and care for the sick and poor of the parish was removed thus casting them to their own devices. ( see copy of patent below )

Grant of Land by Elizabeth I to Oliver Grace (Graces St, Nenagh)  - 20/07/1562. The grant comprises Tyone Priory, Mill and Demesne part of which is Nenagh, Ballymackey & Templederry. Other townlands immediately spotted are Cloghprior and Dunkerrin (virtualtreasury.ie)

Transfer of the Tyone monastery lands to Robert Boyle 01/04/1662 (Records of the Rolls, Vol VIII, virtualtreasury.ie)

Tyone (Tione) from the Down Survey. This map dates from 1787 based on the 1665 original (virtualtreasury.ie)

Seal of the Priory

 

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One of the schoolboy legends was the inevitable tunnel joining both Tyone Priory and the Franciscan Friary in town and of course somebody always knew someone who had been in it. Too much Enid Blyton and Dick Barton when I was growing up. One also has to bear in mind that as with many of these ruins, unscrupulous grave robbers would sometimes break open the crypts looking for jewellery buried with the dead leaving a void which to a childs imagination became an entrance to a hidden network.

 

Aerial view of Tyone Priory 10/07/1969