A holy stone & a crooked half crown: meandering in South Kerry

A quick field trip to County Kerry recently produced a couple of interesting finds. The first was a bullaun stone, recognised as a holy well, now enclosed in its own ivy-covered stone enclosure at the side of the Cloonalassan road out for Castlemaine.

Closer inspection revealed the bullaun to be large, flush with the ground and cemented firmly in place.

On even closer inspection, it proved to be still revered. An interesting collection of medals, mass cards, candles and holy water bottles were revealed.

The Archaeological Inventory describes it as: hollowed in the shape of an inverted cone, and feeling within, it was surprisingly deep and most definitely pointy!

It was full of water and looked a lot better after the leaves were removed.

According to MF Cusack ( A History of the Kingdom of Kerry, 1871) it is known as Cloch Mochaeda or St Mochuda’s Stone and the historic OS maps refer to it as Cloghmacudda.

An entry from the Schools’ Folklore Collection gives a little more information:

There is an old ruin of a church near my uncle’s house. There are three priests buried in the middle of the old ruin. On a dark Winter’s night big light is seen there. There is also a ruin of town to be seen. It is called Clounalassan. It is probably one of the forts owned by Fingen Macuda’s father. Not very far from the ruin is a stone called the holy stone. People come to this stone to get cured and leave rags on a tree near it. People say if you took anyone of the rags in your hands you would get the disease the person had. This stone is called Cloc Moc[?] and is situated in the foot- path leading to the Rectory. The people come to this stone generally before dawn and bring a bottle of water from a well nearby. They then say three or four rosaries and wash their eyes in the water. Immediately they are cured and leave a rag or some other token on a tree near the stone as we have already mentioned.

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Sadly there’s no sign of a rag tree but the water, unusually for a bullaun, seems to have had a cure for sore eyes – normally bullauns are associated with warts. I am wondering which well was referred to in this extract.

This entry describes how the well came into being, quite a common story as far as saints and baptism are concerned:

When Mochuda was born there were very few churches in Ireland, and as he was born by the roadside, there was no water to baptise him. It is said a stream of water sprang and he was baptised by a bishop, and was called Mochuda. People give rounds at this well. There is a big tree over the well and people wash their eyes in the well and put the rags on the trees. There was a parson’s house at the back of the well and he took a stone flag that was in the front of the well and put it in front of his door and in the morning, it was back at the well again.

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St Mochuda, or St Carthage the Younger as he is sometimes called, was supposedly born on the banks of the river Maine, very nearby. A story describes how one day he was herding pigs in the fields when he saw a bishop and his clergy passing by, chanting psalms. He ran to his father telling him he had never seen anything so beautiful. His father hoped he would become a warrior but eventually agreed to allow him become a monk in a neighbouring monastery under the guidance of St. Carthage the Elder. Carthage the Elder called him Mo-chuta as an affectionate diminutive and subsequently ordained him a priest. This fits in nicely with another entry from the Schools’ Folklore collection :

My grandfather told us that there is a fort in our field by the banks of the River Maine. It is said a pagan chief lived there in olden times. He also told us this story. There was a monastery near Kiltallagh and another in Ardcrone. It was the custom of the monks to travel along by the River Maine. As they moved from fort to fort they chanted the Praises of the Lord. This great chief had in his service a young lad named Mochuda. Mochuda happening to see the white robed monks passing, he followed them down to their monastery. There he remained all night listening to the chanting of the monks and longing to be with them. The chief wondered where Mochuda had gone and he sent people in search of him and the boy was brought, bound, to him. The chief asked him where he had been, and he said he was listening to the monks chanting their hymns in praise of the Lord, and that he would prefer to be with him. The chief then let him go away and he joined the monks … Mochuda performed many great miracles, he cured the king of Munster from blindness and he was also deaf and dumb. Mochuda made prayers to God for him and put the sign of the Holy Cross on his eyes, ears and mouth and the king was cured of all his distress and trouble.

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The bullaun is not far from the church at Kiltallagh which may have been where Mochuda first saw the monks who so dazzled him. Although the current church dates from the nineteenth century, it lies within an early ecclesiastical enclosure, the outline clearly seen on the historic OS maps. This is believed to have been the site of St Mochuda’s first foundation.

Architectural fragments from an earlier church remain on the site.

Other interesting things about St Mochuda:

• According to the Life of St Mochuda of Lismore, he was so handsome: maidens to the number of thirty were so enamoured of him that they could not conceal their feelings. He had to build a nunnery to contain them and persuade them to devote themselves to God rather than him.

• He founded a monastery at Lismore, County Waterford and was the first Abbot.

• There’s another Cloch Mochuda in Count Kerry, this one near near Killarney. It is a double bullaun and has a delightful story attached. St Mochuda was living on the island of Innsifallen when he was distracted by bird song. He followed the chirruping and eventually fell asleep under a tree. He slept for 200 years leaving the imprints of his knees!

• His feast Feast day is 16th May.

Sunday’s Well, Tobereendoney, Boolasallagh

On towards towards Boolsallagh, south west of Farranfore, in search of Sunday’s Well, recorded in the Ordnance Survey Book for Kerry as tobereeendoney. When Patricia O Hare visited it in 1996 she described as a waterfilled depression but noted a scattering of stones and a statue of the BVM. She also mentioned a rag tree and the possibility that rounds were occasionally paid. The first thing I encountered was attractive signage at a new housing estate which looked promising.

On knocking at a couple of doors, it seemed that no one had any idea about the well their estate was named after. Following the GPS, a gate into a field looked encouraging and I trekked over the very muddy terrain complete with enormous cow pats, luckily no sign of the cattle. The well was instantly identifiable by its circular shape, fenced off in the middle of the field.

However, the interior was a jungle and I although I thought I could glimpse some water within I could not be certain. There was still a tree, in fact several, but no sign of any rags.

Patricia O Hare recounts how the well is said to have originated:

…. According to Mr Michael Culotty of Toornanoulagh the people of this area decided this was a holy well when a local woman found the water she removed from it would not boil. The well then became a place of pilgrimage. People came to pray and seek cures and left behind statues, medals and glass ornaments. Some people, however, believed the best results were to be obtained by throwing silver into it. This belief could be exploited by the unscrupulous as illustrated by the legend recounted by Mr Culotty, of a woman who owned a pub in Firies village. One day, on the way to the well, she took a damaged half crown from her till as her offering. Upon her return a short time after, she was puzzled to see the same half crown once again in her till. Her suspicions were aroused upon noticing a local man who lived near the well, drinking a pint at the counter. On subsequent visits to the well the woman is said to have left money in the till , declaring she did not believe in getting paid for drinks with her own money.

Patricia Ó Hare Holy Wells & Other Sites of Pilgrimage within a Portion of East Kerry. Journal of Kerry Archaeological & Historical Society, Volume 29,1996

Removing offerings from a well tends to be considered taboo but is seems coins were sometimes looked upon slightly differently. During her extensive research into the holy wells of Ireland, Dr Celeste Ray noted that a similar story involving using votive coins as drinking money occurred in fifteen counties within the Republic. She describes how, although the thief was generally condemned, sometimes it was believed he or she could have just borrowed the coin with the intention to repay it and was looked upon less severely. She suggests money was seen as less personal than other offerings. (Celeste Ray: The Origins of Ireland’s Holy Wells, 2014).

Finally a quick detour before returning to our excellent B&B The Phoenix.

Sile na Gig, Kilsarkan

When I saw that this sile na gig was sort of in the vicinity I just had to visit for it’s one I had long wanted to see. Kilsarkan is basically an ancient graveyard complete with the ruins of an early church, now much ivy covered.

One window holds a particular treat. Peer up through the ivy and a strange figure is revealed gazing down at you: a sile na gig perched on the pointy bit of the window, her splayed legs making an odd star shape.

She is a strange and unusual example and today it is quite hard to make out what is going on but Barbara Freitag describes her succinctly as having:

… (a) big triangular head with rope-like hair and prominent jug ears; bulbous eyes, wedge nose and small open mouth. Body divides below neck; no arms; very broad genital area which shows signs of rubbing; legs spread horizontally, stretching out over spandrels of window; feet turned outwards left leg slightly raised.

Frietag, Barbara: Sheela na Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, 2004

This excellent drawing shows things more clearly.

Although there appears to be no associated holy well, there was once a pattern held on the site, possibly associated with the BVM as May seems to be the prominent period of devotion:

People give rounds at the graveyard on Good Friday, and all during the month of May. When-they go in May first go to the altar (which is really a window in the gable of a ruined church). Then the go round to church (anti-clock wise), three times saying a rosary each time.

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Interesting to read that the round was anticlockwise. This is highly unusual and generally considered extremely unlucky. It seems the rounds are still paid for there was evidence of offerings tucked amongst all the ivy at the altar.

The sile too is clearly incorporated into the rounds for her genital area shows evidence of much rubbing and there are crosses marked by pilgrims all around the window.

Although very different in appearance, she is reminiscent of the little sile above the window at Ballyvourney, also visited as part of the rounds and also much rubbed.

Unlike the Ballyvourney example, the Kilsarkan sile is in her original position.

Some further odd and interesting information is given in this extract:

In the local church yard, namely Kilsarkon, there is a path around the church about three feet out from the wall, and unbaptised children are always buried outside the path. People walk around this path when paying rounds. Kilsarkon church got its name from a saint, who had a monastery … there long ago, and the ruins of the monastery are to be seen there. There is a legend above it also, that it was first in a place called Drumulton right across the hill, and that it was removed in one night from Drumulton across the Flesk to Kilsarcan . A few large stones similar to those in the walls of the graveyard, are to be seen in the river Flesk. There is a statue of the Blessed Virgin in this church which was previously in the old chapel in Scartaglin and every body that comes to the church, leaves coppers for the expenses of painting the Statue.

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I have encountered the moving graveyard story before at Matehy near Blarney where gravestones were also said to have fallen into the local river as the graveyard removed itself having been affronted.

The statue of the BVM remains and is smartly painted.

The locations of these wells can be found in the Gazetteer.