Between A.D. 240 and the latter half of the sixth century, the Irish made many invasions, overran the South and West of England, and settled colonies in parts of Devon and Cornwall, more especially along their northern coasts. Mr Baring-Gould, in a most interesting paper, sketches out the various descents and settlements, and traces them by their stone monuments and by the names of the Irish saints that they left in churches and villages and holy wells. Some of the invaders established themselves near Tavistock, and tokens of them have been found in the neighbourhood in the shape of three stones bearing inscriptions--one in Ogham characters. The stones are now in the Vicarage garden. 'On one, which is over seven feet high, occurs a name, probably of a Sept or tribe in Kerry, where several stones inscribed with the same name are found. On the third are the words: "Dobunii Fabri fili Enabarri...." Dobun was a _faber_, or smith. In Celtic organizations every _tuatha_, or tribe, had its chief smith.... Dobunii ... is the Latin for the genitive Douvinias, also a Kerry name.... Here, then, we have written and engraven in stone for our learning the record of an Irish settlement from Kerry in the neighbourhood of Tavistock.'
Mr Baring-Gould further mentions briefly the different tribes and peoples that have invaded and possessed themselves of the land, to be in turn conquered by new-comers, and the eventual, amalgamation of races, and quotes Professor Sullivan to the discomfiture of those who rhapsodize over the 'pure Celt' in Great Britain or Ireland--for, after all, it was Irish colonists and conquerors who 'gave their name to Scotland, and at one time occupied the coast of Wales and 'West Domnonia.'
Professor Sullivan writes: 'The Irish tenants of to-day are composed of the descendants of Firbolgs and other British and Belgic races; Milesians ... Gauls, Norwegians, Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Normans, and English.... This is a fact which should be remembered by those who theorize over the qualities of the "pure Celt," whoever they may be.' There are many amateurs whose views would be less tedious if they could be convinced by Professor Sullivan.
The memory of one Irish saint clung for centuries to Tavistock, for the abbey was dedicated jointly to St Mary the Holy Virgin, and to St Rumon, an Irish missionary who came over to Cornwall. The abbey has unfortunately been totally destroyed, and various buildings now stand on its site. The old chapter-house was pulled down by a certain Saunders, 'of barbarous memory,' 'to make way for a modern house now called the Bedford Hotel.' The refectory is used as a Unitarian chapel, and still keeps its fine pinnacled porch. A ruined tower covered with ivy, called Betsy Grimbal's Tower (a young woman was supposed to have been murdered in it), stands in grounds close by, and the other chief fragments still to be seen are the monks' still-house, a little bit of the abbey church wall, and the remains of a battlemented wall following the line of the river. The north gateway is the most perfect remnant and that has been restored. Of the religious houses in the Diocese of Exeter this monastery was the most important, and it eclipsed them all by 'the extent, convenience, and magnificence of its buildings.' Orgar, Earl of Devon, founded it in 961, and Ordulph, his son, completed it on such a grand scale, that there was room for one thousand inhabitants.