St Moling: wading against the flow

St Moling was an interesting chap and fortunately for us, his life is well documented in the Book of Tighe Mulling, or Book of Moling, written sometime during the late eighth century and the subject of several translations since.

Moling was born in 614 AD in the Sliabh Luachra area of Kerry but his birth was not straight forward. His father, Faelán the Fair, fell in love disastrously with his wife’s sister, Eamhaid, when she came to stay with them. Ashamed to find herself pregnant Eamhaid returned home and eventually gave birth to her baby in: prodigious snow, so that it reached men’s shoulders. Fortunately a company of angels arrived and melted the snow to a circumference of 30ft around them. Eamhaid’s intention was to kill the child but at the crucial moment a dove appeared and wrapped its wings around the newborn and protected him. Two passing monks took her and the baby to St. Brendan of Clonfert, who had heard about the incident. The baby was baptised Taircell, meaning gathering, a reference to how the baby had been gathered in the wings of the dove. Taircell grew into a striking looking boy: whiter than snow was his body, ruddier than the flame the sheen of his cheek and was trained in the priesthood. Eventually they: cut his hair and put the tonsure of a monk on him and he set off to fulfil his destiny.

Around this time his name was changed to Mo Ling or Moling. Apparently he met some evil spectres on the road and took three huge leaps to escape them: Ling meaning leap as Gaeilge. Pádraig Ó Riain in his Dictionary of Irish Saints suggest Moling was a Lunasa saint and his name refers to Lugh, the Celtic god of the harvest.

Adventures were had on the way to meet his destiny of course but eventually Moling arrived at Rinn Ros Broc, Point of the Badger’s Wood, on the banks of the river Barrow in County Carlow. Here he founded a monastic settlement as foretold. He then set about organising a mill to provide corn for the community. It took him seven years to cut the mill race which he did single-handedly!  During this time he neither washed nor drank. When it was finished the mill was blessed on the 25th July, the Feast of St James. A large crowd came to participate with Moling leading the proceeding: 

… by wading against the flow of the water to the place where it diverted from the river and praying for all who came to this place of pilgrimage, (who) in commemoration of the event, would find healing of body and spirit. (Book of St Moling)

Rinn Ros Bruc was the original name for what then became Teach Moling, which was later anglicised to St Mullins. And this too is where my destiny brought me a few weeks ago. It is a remarkable and complex site. The remains of the heroically achieved water course can still be seen as can the ruins of no less than five churches, a round tower, an impressive Norman motte and a small chapel dedicated to St James. The churchyard, which is still in use, contains many interesting and ancient gravestones too.

One of the 5 churches

Remains of round tower

Graveyard

Motte

Water course

St Mullin’s Holy Well

Fascinating as this is, it was the holy well I had come to see. This lies a short way away from the main site and has its own carpark. It’s clearly signed, gated with a stile to the left and is beautifully maintained.

On the day I visited, a family were enjoying  a picnic right next to it and a little sprite was at play.

Like most things connected with St Moling the well is unusual and interesting. Holywells of Ireland has an excellent blog about the whole site and explains the origins of the blessed well:

The well is said to have a curious beginning. Saint Moling was said to have been interested in acquiring the wood from one of the five trees of Ireland * to build a church on the land that had been granted him by Fingin (of Cashel fame). Saint Laserian had also expressed a great interest in having some of the wood from the Yew of Rossa (which had recently fallen), but Moling – who was very close to Laserian – convinced the saint to part with the precious wood. When the wood arrived on the site, Moling had been working the wood and a small shaving entered his eye causing him great discomfort. One day as a cleric walked past he noted Moling sitting idly by the roadside and he asked him what the matter was. Moling explained that he felt the talons of an eagle, a branch of holly and the scratch of a griffin in his eyelid each time his eye moved, causing him much pain and discomfort. The cleric took pity on Moling and blessed a local well of water and told him to bathe his eye in it until it got better.

The roof of the oratory was said to have been built with wood from the Yew Of Rossa. ( *Not sure about the Five Sacred Trees of Ireland – Ali Isaac has the story)

Walled and hedged the well consists of a stone reservoir fed by numerous springs (seven or nine depending on which account you read). Large stones and slabs can be seen under the water which is clear if a little green. There is no access to the reservoir.

The The water from here flows through the granite walls via two cut stone openings into a small enclosed oratory.

The flow from one opening drops into what looks like baptismal font, supported on two stones.

The water flows down onto a chunky and uneven flagstone floor and out through a skinny rectangular doorway.The roof, supposedly constructed from the Yew of Rossa, has long since disappeared.

The water goes through a stone conduit disappears underground and reappears in a trough that winds its way down to the river. This trough is known as the turas, or the pilgrim’s way.

Inside the oratory a semi-circular ornate metal table has been adapted as a receptacle for cups and mugs, and in a niche in the walls an assortment of offerings – statues. rosaries, shows that the well is still revered.

The first reference to the well is made in 1348 in the Annals of the Four Masters when a Franciscan Friar describes how rich and poor, noble and peasant queued up to to immerse themselves in the water as protection against a severe outbreak of the Black Death.This proved effective (did it wash off the fleas?) and the well gained a powerful reputation for healing. It was traditional to fully immerse the body in the well and recent research by Dr Tomás O Carragáin of University College Cork (UCC)  indicates that the oratory may be the remains of a baptismal chapel built over the waters of a holy well, the only surviving early medieval well-chapel in Ireland. The water course, or turas, was also considered potent and pilgrims would also wade in it much as Moling had once done. An entry from the Schools’ Folklore Collection describes the meanings behind this:

… In olden times people used to go to this well on the twenty fifth of July and take of their boots and stockings and walk against the stream. These people used to pray and walk on the thorns and everything in the stream in satisfaction to God for their sins. St Moling said if a man or a woman walked against the stream he or she would die a happy death. ((510-513: 903)

Today the water is still considered potent but believed to hold a cure for ulcers of the feet, (St Moling suffered from them), sore eyes (remember the splinter), warts and flu (a reminder perhaps of the Black Death). For the most powerful cure you should duck your head under the water as it flows out from the reservoir into the oratory.

There is but one holy well St Moling’s well in this parish. It got its name from St Moling. The 17th June is St Moling’s day. It was the custom long ago to visit the well on that day and do the pilgrimage but very few people visit it on that day now. A man from Kilkenny who was blind of one eye came some day and washed his eye in the well. He was not cured. Some man told him to come again on St Moling’s day and bathe his eye in it and he would be cured. He came again on that day and did as he was told and after three days his sight was restored.
On the Pattern day in St Mullins many people drink the water. Some bring bottles home with them and any person who has any ailment and drinks it nine mornings and says some prayers may be cured. (469/470: 0903)

There were two pattern days associated with the well: St Moling’s Feast Day, 17th June, and St James’ Feast Day, 25th July. It sounds as though its popularity had waned somewhat in the 1930s:

Three trout lived in this well and any person with any affected went to this well and walked against the stream was cured. Every person went to this well to be cured while the trout lived in it. One day a woman by the name of Mrs. Malone went out to the well for a bucket of water. She was going to boil a pot water. By some ill luck the woman captured one of the trout in the bucket. She put the water in the pot and blew the fan. She blew all the time until she was tired. She threw out the water and she put the trout back in the well again. The well went dry until the trout came to life again … No man ever saw the trout after that. The most curious thing about this well was that it flowed in one spout one year and in another spout the next year. The water changed from the spout it was flowing in and it never flowed in that spout after. No one ever had anything to do with the well when the water changed. (510-513: 903)

However the pattern day was thriving by the 1966 as this  wonderful film by RTE shows. A well attended pattern day is still held today on the sunday before the 25th July : Medieval Pilgrimage in Ireland gives a recent account of her visit. This image is from 2000 and can be found on the excellent St Mullins Amenity & Recreational Tourism Group website.

The rounds were paid clockwise and three circumambulations were necessary. This included wading barefoot through the turas and saying prayers ( nine Our Fathers and nine Hail Marys) at each of the ruined churches in the main site. Water from the well was drunk or affected parts immersed. It could also be taken home to those too ill to attend.

One last thing to say about St Moling in this blog. He loved animals and he seems to have had a soft spot for foxes.

Moling, like St Francis, is said to have loved animals, many of whom – wild and tame – he kept around him in honour of their Maker, and they would eat out of his hand. Among them was a fox, who one day stole a hen that belonged to the monks and ate it. The monks complained to Moling, who scolded the fox. The fox, seeing his master’s anger, went off to the nearby convent, and brought back a hen and placed it, safe and sound, at Moling’s feet. Moling, smiling, said to the fox: ‘You offer plunder to atone for theft. Take back this hen unharmed to the sisters. And from now on you must live without stealing.’ The fox took the hen back to the nuns. Both monks and nuns rejoiced and blessed God. (Catholic Ireland net)

These striking windows are the work of Catherine O’ Brien, a member of the An T’Ur Gloine (The tower of Glass): a studio set up to train young artists in the technique of stained glass and to encourage a distinct Irish character to their work.

The fox looking contrite

The fox at his master’s knee. Photos: Historic Graves

St Moling & pet alsatian

They shows Moling’s mischievous pet fox – at first contrite after stealing the hen and then more relaxed at his master’s knee. He also had a pet alsatian. These beautiful windows can be see in St Peter’s Church Ennisnag, Kilkenny.

I too have a resident fox, not one bit contrite.

Moling later became Archbishop of Ferns but returned to St Mullins before he died in 696AD, He is said to be buried here. What an interesting man, and there’s more to come!

The location of this well can be found in the Gazetteer.