Tintern Parva on the Hook Head Peninsula was founded by William Marshal in c.1200.

Tintern Parva means little Tintern and it is also known as Tintern of the Vow. It is a daughter house of Tintern in Wales and was colonised with monks from the Welsh Tintern.

Hook Head Peninsula is at the tip of South East Ireland and is possibly the origin of the saying ‘by hook or by crook’. Tradition has it that when Cromwell was invading Ireland he said he’d take it by hook or by crook, meaning by Hook Head Peninsula or Crooke in County Waterford. Whether this is true or not is very much debatable, but it is a nice story regardless.

Marshal came to visit the lands in Ireland that came to him by right of his wife Isabel de Clare in 1200-1201. They were caught in a terrible storm crossing the Irish Sea and Marshal vowed to God that if they survived he would found an abbey. The ship didn’t sink and Marshal kept his word.  The Irish Annals found in The Chartularies of St Mary’s Abbey in Dublin recorded that Marshal came in a storm and, in thanks to God for his survival on the unforgiving Irish Sea, he founded the abbey of Tintern Parva.

King John confirmed Marshal’s grant of lands for the abbey in 1200 but Marshal’s charter of confirmation dates probably to 1207-1213 from the names of the witnesses. The lands that the abbey stands on were part of the Hervey de Montmorency’s fief, but when he died in 1205 they reverted back to Marshal and this might have been one of the reasons for the delay in the confirmation of lands for the abbey.

In 1447 the lands had wasted considerably and the current Abbot was forced to rebuild his house at his own cost. As recompense it was enacted in parliament that the Abbots of Tintern could not be forced to attend parliaments or great councils.

The Abbey fell to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540. In 1541 it was partly converted into living quarters. The Colclough family occupied the abbey from the mid 16th century until the 1960s.

References.

Site Visit 2012 and 2015

Wexford Heritage Trail booklet.

John T. Gilbert, (ed.) Chartularies of St Mary’s Abbey Dublin with The Register of its House at Dunbrody and Annals of Ireland, Volume II, London: Longman and Co, 1884.

Grosse, The Antiquities of Ireland, Volume I, Kilkenny: Wellbrook Press, 1982.

Bradley, John and ODrisceoil, Colin (eds.) William Marshal and Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016.

The photos are all mine.