Whilst up Mount Brandon and chatting with Mícheal he asked me if I had been to St Flainn’s Well. I confessed I had not, mainly because the Archaeological Inventory is rather dismissive: Toberyline/Tobar Flainn: Located at the base of the sea cliffs immediately S of Brandon point. It is a ‘clear spring in a rock […]
A Mountain Well for Lughnasa
Some wells are more challenging than others. Tobar Bréanainn, St Brendan’s Well, on the summit of Cnoc Bréanainn, Mount Brandon, has to be one of the most dramatically positioned holy wells and one of the most fiendishly difficult I’ve ever attempted to get to. But it had to be done, and on the correct day, […]
Tobar Manacháin agus an Madra
I’m back in the Gaeltacht having finished an intense but rewarding week on an Irish language immersion course in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, Corca Dhuibhne; Ballyferriter, Dingle Peninsula. (There’ll be a lot of Irish in this blog, hopefully mainly spelled correctly, but it seems only right to give names in Irish first). The course was very […]
Trekking through Glens: Tobar na nGealt
… A long time he went faring through all Ireland, poking his way into hard rocky clefts, shouldering through ivy bushes, unsettling falls of pebbles in narrow defiles, wading estuaries, breasting summits, trekking through glens, till he found the natural welcome of Glen Bolcáin. That place is a pastoral asylum, where all madmen Of Ireland […]
Thinking Out Gobnait
A visit to Corca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula, and the Gaeltacht, with several interesting wells on the agenda (an oxymoron surely). First stop, Dún Chaoin, Dunquin, and Ionad agus Oileán an Bhlascaoid Mhór, the Blasket Centre, Designed over 25 years ago and nestling respectfully into the landscape, this is an interesting building containing a fascinating display […]
St Senan’s Well, Tobershenane, near Listowel
We visited this well shortly after St Michael’s Well in Lixnaw- what a striking contrast! No huge statues, paved areas or painted energy points here, just an ambling walk down an old green track towards a small clump of trees, keeping a wary eye out for the bull! It hasn’t changed much since 1958 by […]