There are reputed to be over 3000 holy wells in Ireland. My friend Carl Lange from Tough Soles has charted them all on a map, using the Archaeological Survey of Ireland as his source.
In February 2016 I set out to visit all the holy wells in County Cork and record what I found. Little did I realise what an interesting, eye opening and sociable journey it would be!
The Archaeological Inventory for County Cork (2024) lists 358 holy wells. As you can see from another of Carl’s maps, County Cork has the highest density of wells in the country.
Holy Wells of County Cork
358 wells are listed in the Archaeological Inventory for County Cork. Around 50 are described as not found (they may have been flooded, eroded, ploughed, vanished, become inaccessible, forgotten) but it is worth noting though that although some wells are recorded as having vanished they are in fact still extant. And not all wells have been formally recorded in the Inventory. I have currently (August 2026) visited and recorded 338 wells in the county, see map below, although some of these may not be formally recognised as holy.
As you can see, holy wells are literally everywhere in County Cork. Adventures have been had, a huge variety of wells noted and some wonderful encounters enjoyed along the way. Here are a few findings (numbers are very approximate).
Some (initial) statistics for County Cork
Of the approximately 338 wells visited 57 have vanished ie there was no physical sign of them. Add this number to those recorded in the Inventory as not found and this give a rough total of around 107 wells that no longer exist – I suspect the final number will be greater. A few of those that have vanished still linger in the memory such as this Eye Well, Tobernasog, in Rathoon East, where the landowner showed me the spot where the well traditionally had been.
Another 146 wells have been abandoned or are inactive ie they still exist in one state or another but have no signs of having received pilgrims in the near past. Here are a few examples.
120 wells were found to be active ie there were signs that people had visited. Of that number 60 received what looked like casual or infrequent visitors – offerings were sparse or old and mossy.
The remaining 60 holy wells seemed to receive regular pilgrims. Criteria for differentiation includes upkeep of well, extent of offerings, pilgrimages, condition of the water and general observations. The examples below show wells that are still very active.
Encouragingly, several wells have been restored over the last few years, some with more panache than others.
It may be possible to make a very general summing up of the state of the holy wells of County Cork: just under a third have vanished or could not be found; one third are abandoned or inactive, and just over a third are still being revered. I was surprised and rather depressed to find how many have been abandoned. It would be wonderful to see more wells brought back to life – a word of warning though, holy wells are protected monuments and as such any restoration work should be carried out under the guidance of the National Monuments Service.